Addressing Gender Inequality in the Workplace

This assignment delves into the issue of gender inequality in the workplace, examining various factors contributing to this disparity. It analyzes the role of human resource management (HRM) in mitigating these issues through policies promoting work-life balance, eliminating salary negotiation biases, and fostering a culture of female leadership. The assignment also explores the effectiveness of small wins approaches in driving organizational change towards greater gender equity.

Running Head: HRMT ASSESSMENT 3
HRMT Assessment 3
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1HRMT ASSESSMENT 3
Executive summary
The focus of the report is gender inequality. There is need of increased effort from the
Human resource department, to overcome the gender inequality in workplace. Using this thesis
statement in response to gender inequality issue in workplace the report aims to analyse relevant
theory and strategic management literature.
The factors that contributed towards the gender inequality in workplace in Australia as
per the literature are capitalist system, prejudice, patriarchy, stereotyping attitude by HRM, and
lack of cross cultural skills by HRM. The challenges due to gender inequality are lack of flexible
working environment, hiring biases, gender pay gap, and misevaluation of their capabilities.
It is recommended to HRD to overcome the gender inequality by initiating gender-
focused staretgies, focussing on promoting the flexible working hours, fostering
female leadership, conducting annual pay equity analysis and eliminating the
salary negotiation.

2HRMT ASSESSMENT 3
Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................3
Analysis of the Gender inequality issue..............................................................................3
Need of HR efforts...........................................................................................................3
Role of capitalism and patriarchy....................................................................................4
Prejudice and Hiring biases.............................................................................................5
Employee relation challenges..........................................................................................5
Recommendations- Practical solutions................................................................................7
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................8
References............................................................................................................................9

3HRMT ASSESSMENT 3
Introduction
The report deals with the recent story on gender inequality published on the website,
www.hcamag.com on 14 December, 2017. The story deals with increasing efforts by the
employees to address the pay gaps and gender imbalances persisting in Australia. The story
highlighted that there is a gender pay gap which is in favour of men in all occupations. The story
informs about the Australia’s national gender pay gap, which is 15.3%. It is indicating that the
employers are still not doing enough to reduce the gender inequality. The published news
informs about the efforts being taken to reduce the issue but could lower the SAP’s gender pay
gap to only 2%. It is still a long process to eliminate the issue entirely (Hilton, 2018).
The thesis of the paper is - There is need of increased effort from the Human resource
department, to overcome the gender inequality in workplace. The report aims to analyse the
gender inequality issue using relevant theory and literature and provide practical solutions to the
issues.
For this purpose the report draw on the concepts of the strategic management and
literature related to the employee relation challenges. All the arguments are supported with the
theoretical discussion.
Analysis of the Gender inequality issue
Need of HR efforts
There is a need of HR efforts to ensure the gender inequality as most of the data focuses
on increased efforts from women to end the pay gap. There is multitude of factors, influencing
the pay given to women. It includes nature of their employment, industry, history of wage
fixation, and their trade union membership. There is clearly more role to play by the organisation
in addition to the women’s action alone. Equal pay has been a political debate since ages even
after 30 years of equal pay legislation. Women despite focusing more on knowing their worth or
doing research or by negotiating effectively may not help the issue to be resolved. Thus, HR
needs to develop proactive strategies to mitigate the issue. Gender pay gap can be dealt at the HR
level as on an average men are earning 24% more than women (Kahn, 2015).). According to the

4HRMT ASSESSMENT 3
Federal Government's Workplace Gender Equality Agency, women are taking home a smaller
pay packet than men and have poor job design. Also women entering into the management roles
are denied of part time work opportunities. There are very few women working as senior
mangers being part time workers. It is due to lack of flexible working embraced by men. Women
take greater role in family care than men. Therefore, women mostly take part time jobs. There
are still 30 top companies in Australia that has no women on their boards. Women have the
significant potential to offer, which is missed by the Australian economy (Cassells, Duncan &
Ong, 2017).
Role of capitalism and patriarchy
Gender inequality in the Australia can be explained by Marxist theory. According to this
theory, the segregation of the labour force is influenced by the capitalist system. Marxist
believed that women liberalism can be achieved, by dismantling the capitalism. The inequality is
arising due to exercise of power as per the class analysis. The Marxist feminism theory has
emphasised on patriarchy as the cause of gender segregation for gaining greater economic
advantage. According to Marxist feminism the inequality in distributing the domestic duties
between men and women is beneficial for capitalism. The same extends to the work place
(Whatmore, 2016). Marxist argued that this inequality caused the conflict between the labour and
capital in various organisations. Marxist theory was however criticised by various feminist
scholars for ignoring the gender related issues as his theory did not consider the child care. Child
care could not be combined with employment which was the major drawback for women. It was
the major concern for the radical political feminist theory. As per the radical feminist theory,
the oppression in employment was the basis of patriarchy. This is considered the cause of the
lower status of women both economically and socially (Bryson, 2016).
The status of the women in the employment is also explained by the Dual system theory.
This theory is based on the radical feminist theory and the material analysis of history. This
theory explains the dual role of the “capitalist system and patriarchy” in sustaining the gender
inequality in labour force. In this theory the job segregation is explained by the intersection of
the capitalism and patriarchy. Both together have led to emergence of the dominant capitalist
and men. Both the outcomes are similar although emerging from different systems. This theory
however, extended the understanding of the gender segregation at work (Carter, 2014).

5HRMT ASSESSMENT 3
Prejudice and Hiring biases
Gender inequality in workplace is also explained by the neo-classical economists. It is
known as the human capital theory and considers the differences in human capital possessed by
the employees as a reason for gender inequality in workplace. According to the neo-classical
economists, employees receives rewards based on their education, capability and training. It
means that the organisation based their recruitment decisions depending on the market value of
each individual’s human capital. The theory explains that women were paid less as they were
considered to have fewer skills than men. The challenge here is the prejudice that women had
lesser market experience than men and lesser human capital. The reason for inferior skills of
women was house chores and child rearing. Men tend to spend more time in paid jobs and thus,
the human capital gap widens. Women stay out of labour market due to maternity leave and the
human capital decreases. After re-entering the market, inequality in earnings is observed between
men and women as women lack flexible working. Hiring biases are observed after rejoining
from maternity leave (Ochsenfeld, 2014).
Employee relation challenges
The gender inequality in workplace implies the HR management to have strategic
approaches in every organisation. It may be related with area of job design, career support, work
organisation and work life balance initiatives. However, HR management faces employee
relationship challenges. It is because not every team in the organization can afford to have the
members of the same sex. Owing to cultural diversity, there are different customs followed in
different parts of the world. It is difficult to meet the expectations of each employee. HR
managers cannot control the thought of each employee. The superior employee of the team may
not be accessible to his or her team members (Jackson et al., 2014). According to Sharma
(2016), lack of cross-cultural communication skills is the barrier for HRD to identify the
inequality. There is a need of capability approach to manage the diversity and gender equality. In
this regard the HR needs internal capabilities to act in response to the issue, which is secured by
the numeracy, literacy, education and training. Minorities and women lack adequate training
program in par of the men. One of the examples of the capability approach is to combine the
internal capabilities with external structural conditions to develop flexible work arrangements.

6HRMT ASSESSMENT 3
HRM needs to address the needs of the diverse group of people to avoid conflicts and
tensions. The HRM should not consider the “us” verses “them” strategy. There should be a
difference between the equality policy and diversity policy. Diversity management is focused on
valuing the organisational initiative on respecting every employee in the workplace irrespective
of gender and other variables. Equal opportunities are associated with employee treatment that is
right based and tolerant. It includes initiatives that are entrenched in conformity of legal rules
(Kulik, 2014). There is bulk of literature available on managing both equality and diversity. It is
critical in workplace as it influences all the members working in the organisation. Managing both
the aspects leads to increase in form’s competiveness. It is possible if the diversity is not
considered as public relation tool.
Employees are motivated in every organisation using the performance appraisal method.
It helps to maintain both equality and diversity. Some organisations do not uncover the origin of
potential biases. This implies HRM for conducting the “culture and management systems audit”.
Lack of such audits keeps certain members of the organisation at disadvantage as per Rees &
Smith (2017). There are incidents of racial discriminations that inhibited the formation of the
constructive group. Appraisal system with gender biases was also found to increase the
disadvantage position of women. It may be associated with the stereotyping attitude of HR, and
other factors such as low expectation and double standards. Therefore, the racial and diversity
audit is considered to be useful in reducing gender-based discrimination. Employee from diverse
communities such as African-American female managers may have to work harder than
Australian male manager owing to the biasness in performance appraisal. There are some firms
such as seven-Eleven that manipulated the performance appraisal scores of the employees to
reduce the rewards. Women mostly received low scoring than men and led to job dissatisfaction.
Women rejoining after maternity leave were expected less productivity than men. They had poor
flexibility in working. It affected their acceptance in workplace and income equality.
Exploitation of the black or ethnic minority women was evident from the cost benefit analysis. It
is attributed to the manager’s attitude towards equal opportunity. It implies for fairness and AA
edicts in managing gender discrimination (Sharma, 2016).

7HRMT ASSESSMENT 3
Recommendations- Practical solutions
HRD can overcome this issue by initiating gender-focused HR management. There are
mediating effects of the gender diversity. Gender-diverse workforce results from the human
resource policies and practices that is gender-focused. It has great impact on the management as
well as non-management levels. At the non –management levels the gender diversity leads to
higher productivity and higher market performance. A firm engaged in gender-focussed HR
practices is the signal that it values gender- diversity. Such workforce gives competitive
advantage. Hence, this implies for practical implications (Ali, 2016).
HR managers can eliminate the pay disparities by determining the level of knowledge of
each employee and the value they add to the organisation. HR managers should ensure that the
job offers are not based on what an employee earned previously and maintain the internal equity
(Meijerink et al., 2016). Correll (2017) suggested that promotions and biases should be bias free
and ensure equitable development of talent. Both women and men with similar qualifications
should be proportionately assigned to jobs that have better promotions opportunities. Both
should be recommended for opportunities such as management training to increase skills that can
impact the advancement. HR managers should give similar opportunities to both genders
including bonuses, add-ons and similar increases.
According to Tam (2017) HRD should perform an annual pay equity analysis at the time
of merit increase. It will ensure that the pay is based on market value, last three performance
ratings, past experience, and others factors. It is the duty of the HR to adjust the pay of the
employee as per the projected pay. Bonuses should be given based on the annually established
goals. Both the managers and HR partners should set the realistic goals. They must engage in
open discussion with the employees if one demographic is getting too less. The mangers should
be accountable for the development of the team members. The compensation should be
transparent; it means that there should be clear formula determining the pay increases along with
the pay range. This strategy helps provide a rationale and dispel the misconceptions.
It is recommended by the, “Australia’s Workplace Gender Equality
Agency”that the HRD practice need to be explicit about the person

8HRMT ASSESSMENT 3
responsible for equitable pay. Every organisation should have a
remuneration review committee to recognise the discrepancies in pay
equity. Accountability includes roles and responsibilities of the HR managers
in the remuneration process. A company having competitive edge means it
has level “paying” field. It helps to get largest segment of top talent.
Strategic HR management should focus on promoting the flexible working,
focus on measurement, promote female leadership, and eliminate the salary
negotiation. There is a need of quick fix solution to address the gender pay
gap. HR together with manager should consider the where the employees
are heading towards (Javidmehr & Ebrahimpour, 2015).
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the above discussion that HR is not doing enough to address
the gender inequality. The factors that contributed towards the gender inequality in workplace in
Australia as per the literature are capitalist system, patriarchy, stereotyping attitude by HRM, and
prejudice. The other factors include lack of cross cultural skills, capability approach, biased
performance appraisal system by HRM. The challenges faced by the women as a cause of these
factors are gender pay gap, lack of flexible working environment, misevaluation of their
capabilities during performance appraisal and hiring biases. Based on literature, gender-focused
HRM practices are recommended. It is recommended to HRD to overcome the gender inequality
by performing an annual pay equity analysis, focussing on promoting flexible working
hours and, female leadership, and eliminating the salary negotiation.

9HRMT ASSESSMENT 3
References
Ali, M. (2016). Impact of gender-focused human resource management on performance: The
mediating effects of gender diversity. Australian Journal of Management, 41(2), 376-
397.
Bryson, V. (2016). Feminist political theory. Palgrave Macmillan.
Carter, B. (2014). Capitalism, Class Conflict and the New Middle Class (RLE Social Theory).
Routledge.
Cassells, R., Duncan, A. S., & Ong, R. (2017). Gender equity insights 2017: Inside Australia’s
gender pay gap (No. GE02). Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin
Business School.
Correll, S. J. (2017). SWS 2016 Feminist Lecture: Reducing Gender Biases In Modern
Workplaces: A Small Wins Approach to Organizational Change. Gender &
Society, 31(6), 725-750.
Hilton, J. (2018). Is HR doing enough to address gender inequality?. www.hcamag.com.
Retrieved 4 February 2018, from
https://www.hcamag.com/hr-business-review/leadership-development/is-hr-doing-
enough-to-address-gender-inequality-244874.aspx
Jackson, S. E., Schuler, R. S., & Jiang, K. (2014). An aspirational framework for strategic human
resource management. The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 1-56.
Javidmehr, M., & Ebrahimpour, M. (2015). Performance appraisal bias and errors: The
influences and consequences. International Journal of Organizational Leadership, 4(3),
286.
Kahn, L. M. (2015). Wage compression and the gender pay gap. IZA World of Labor.
Kulik, C. T. (2014). Working below and above the line: the research–practice gap in diversity
management. Human Resource Management Journal, 24(2), 129-144.

10HRMT ASSESSMENT 3
Meijerink, J. G., Bondarouk, T., & Lepak, D. P. (2016). Employees as active consumers of
HRM: Linking employees’ HRM competences with their perceptions of HRM service
value. Human resource management, 55(2), 219-240.
Ochsenfeld, F. (2014). Why do women’s fields of study pay less? A test of devaluation, human
capital, and gender role theory. European Sociological Review, 30(4), 536-548.
Rees, G., & Smith, P. (Eds.). (2017). Strategic human resource management: An international
perspective. Sage.
Sharma, A. (2016). Managing diversity and equality in the workplace. Cogent Business &
Management, 3(1), 1212682.
Tam, P. T. (2017). Determinants affecting human resource development of small and medium
enterprises in Dong Nai province. Social Science Learning Education Journal, 2(01).
Whatmore, S. (2016). Farming women: Gender, work and family enterprise. Springer.