Diversity Management: Business & Moral Cases in Woolworths Essay

This essay delves into the crucial aspects of diversity management within organizations, exploring both the business and moral justifications for its implementation. It highlights the strategic role of Human Resource Management (HRM) in fostering an inclusive environment that values employees' diverse backgrounds, including gender, race, age, and ethnicity. The analysis focuses on Woolworths, a prominent Australian company, as a case study, examining its diversity management strategies, policies, and outcomes. The essay discusses Woolworths' commitment to gender diversity, mental health initiatives, and anti-discrimination practices. It presents the company's diversity policy statement, which includes goals such as reflecting the diversity of the Australian population, increasing female representation in leadership roles, and supporting indigenous Australians. The essay also provides recommendations for enhancing diversity management practices, emphasizing the importance of training, inclusive leadership, and a supportive work environment. The conclusion underscores the benefits of diversity for organizational success, strategic goals, and employee well-being.

RUNNNG HEAD: DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
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Introduction:
Satisfying customer needs is one of the main objectives on which competitive organisations
which are in the global market place have always been focusing on. Thus, a strategic role is
played by Human Resource Management, and it is potentially related to causing change in
competitive market environment. To increase productivity, HRM uses the powerful and modern
strategy of managing a diverse set of employees. In general, diversity refers to accepting and
respecting all employees and individuals along with their unique identities such as gender, race,
physical abilities, age, ethnicity and all other ideologies. Economic and competitive growth in a
country is a result of diverse workforce. Further it helps in creating an innovative environment
since a problem is approached from various viewpoints and various solutions.(Galagan 2015).
The following research will focus on the strategies and attributes of the Australian based
company Woolworths regarding their way of diversity maangemnt.
Analysis:
. Australian foods, Endeavour drinks and New-Zealand foods are the main core businesses
owned by Woolworths, the biggest supermarket range of Australia. They have two portfolios;
ALH Group hotel and BIG W grate prices for Aussie Families, which earns $56,276 revenue
(Woolsworthgroup.com.au, 2019). Lucio R. stated that Thompson Reuters’ 2018 Diversity and
Inclusion Index considered Woolworths group as the topmost Australian company. It was placed
at 14th position globally, and Woolworths Holdings was at rank 24 (Lucio, 2018). Woolworths
Bazaar Ltd was established on 5th December 1924 at Imperial Arcade in Sydney by Woolworths
Stupendous. Further in 1930 Woolworth had spread itself all over New-Zealand and Australia
(Woolworthsgroup.com.au, 2019). The workforce of Woolworths comprises of 1700 members

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and 201,000 team members, which has maintained a 50% gender diversity ratio. Headquartered
at New South Wales, they comprise of a wide range of products, such as groceries, beauty,
health, pet, household products and gardening (Joplin and Daus 2017.).
In the modern day competitive market firms are mainly focusing on two factors when
they consider recruiting. First of all they consider firm policies and culture while recruiting. In a
sustainability report published by Woolworths says that they consider building a work
environment which helps the employees to enjoy same opportunities, rewards and resources,
regardless of their cultural, ethnical or gender differences (Woolworths Sustainability Report,
2018). In this organisation the leaders focuses on improving the bottom line of the organisation,
which in turn increases profitability. They are avid promoters of gender diversity. They
themselves have created a diverse workforce of equal proportion of males and females. In
managerial levels there is 41% gender diversity, whereas in senior and executive leadership roles
the figure becomes 32%. They aim to improve on these figures by recruiting talented women in
the workforce. In their sustainability reports they published that about 60% roles in the Executive
committees of the BIG W are held by women, which represents an increase of 10% over the last
year (Woolworths Sustainability Report, 2018).
The moral aspect of Woolworths is that they take consider their reputation seriously when they
serve specific organisations. They have argued regarding the fact that with the increase of the
diversity in the workforce are resulting in the increase of more job seekers. These job seekers are
keen on having the knowledge whether the organizations they are looking up to has the
efficiency of handling the diversity. It has been stated that when firms are forced for complying
with the anti-discrimination legislation, they should be integrating the moral case (Danawitz MA,
Hanappi-Egger, EandMensi-Klarbach H., 2012). The responsibility to develop an organisational

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vision depends on the directorial board. Thus, it is imperative that they must develop statements
that shows their humane sides and also shows that they are a caring employer. Integrating
different techniques and methods is one of the best practices to maintain diversity in the
organisation (Olsen and Martins, 2016). The leaders presented with the most of the responsibility
are a distinctive example of the informative strategy that shows a variety of arrangements which
is dependent on the arrangement and advancement. It can be shown that there is a need to have
connection between the variety and execution, which helps to understand the execution and the
variety, which can produce an improvement in yielding incredible items which further helps in
improving the Woolworths. A future proof diverse team implies that this team should have the
brightest and best talents from around the world. Investors and analysts are helped by the
Diversity and Inclusion Index to identify the firms that are going in the right direction. It further
helps them to take decisions on investment, which are in accordance with their bottom line and
values (Lucio, 2018). According to the sustainability report of the company. The Woolsworth
organization has been highly concerned with the mental health of their employees. The
organization is keen to establish the organizational culture that is concerned with the
psychological well being of the employees as well as their mental security. It is believed by them
that an employee will only be able to deliver the required productivity when they have the sense
of security in them.
The leaders of the company have incorporated various programs within the organization
that practice inclusion. These accounts for looking at the fact whether the right resources are
allocated to hem or the knowledge in their background. This makes the employees feel that they
are welcome in the organization.

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There must be a lot of variety present in the remuneration program. The arrangement should
have a progression that shows dependence on the methods and procedure related to the pool of
abilities (Trittin and Schoeneborn, 2015). Woolworth is producing a workforce which can
continue to work for the organisation even in the future. Since the mental healths of the
employees are extremely important, hence Woolworths is executing lots of programs in that
direction. “ The company strictly follows the guidelines as regulated by the laws in the areas
in the sector of providing equal job opportunities for any gender. They firmly follows an anti
discrimination stance in this respect. The managing of diversity is done in the following way by
the organization:
1. Learning about diversity is the organization’s main preaching towards their employees.
The organization believes that this is the best way for the learning about people and will
further help in the growth of the individual employees. The report of the company firmly
states that the organization is greatly following their trend of including all types of gender
within their workforce.
2. The company also makes use of experience and knowledge sharing practice for the
benefit of the organization. The sharing of knowledge among the employees from
different background helps in the building up of a unique set of skills that will in turn
boost the productivity.
. The group of companies under the Woolworths name has published a Diversity policy
statement in order to achieve their vision.
1. Grow the workforce to reflect the diversity in Australian population as well as celebrate
the diversity prevalent in the workforce.
2. Increase the percentage of females in the senior roles

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3. Create programs in the organisation that prepares and helps women to take up leadership
roles both in the specialist and operational areas.
4. Reconciliation process is a part on which Woolworths is committed to be working on. As
a part of it, they assist and offer employment to the indigenous Australians.
5. Provide especially abled people with opportunities for employment and advancement in
career.
Recommendation:
The diversity management is actually a social process that needs to be articulated and
mended by the management to have a proper organizational couture. The inclusion of
diversify management training with the work schedule will be beneficial in this respect. The
above discussion puts focus on the advantages that the company has been able to gain
because of an effective diversity management (Beaver. and Hutching 2015). An effective
manager is required to have the skill set of managing and operating a functional team and
optimizing their trades since such diversity are valuable in a workforce. The proper
management of this diversity will be helpful in creating a healthy work environment. The
manager has to understand that age affects an employee’s expectations, working styles,
culture as well as characteristics. Thus they have to pay further attentions for distinct
generation in order to understand their expectation from the organization.
Conclusion:
The company has been chosen as Woolworth deliberately since this is an online grocery
store that has its presence across the globe and thus will have a large amount of diverse
workforce working within a same culture. The essay thus aimed at protecting the advantages

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that it has due to its diversity inclusion and the moral culture that it has built in order to
develop the inclusive attitude within the employees. This ultimately has resulted in the
successful attainment of the strategic goal by the company.

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Reference List:
Beaver, G. and Hutchings, K., 2015. Training and developing an age diverse workforce in SMEs: The
need for a strategic approach. Education+ Training, 47(8-9), pp.592-604.
Danawitz, M., Hanappi- Egger, E. and Mensi-Klarbach, H. (2012). Diversity in Organizations:
Concepts and Practices. 1st ed. New York: PalgramMacmilan, p.68.
Galagan, P.A., 2015. Tapping the power of a diverse workforce. Training & Development, 45(3), pp.38-
45.
Joplin, J.R. and Daus, C.S., 2017. Challenges of leading a diverse workforce. Academy of Management
Perspectives, 11(3), pp.32-47.
McCuiston, V.E., Wooldridge, B.R. and Pierce, C.K., 2004. Leading the diverse workforce. Leadership &
Organization Development Journal
Shaban, A., 2016. Managing and leading a diverse workforce: One of the main challenges in
management. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 230, pp.76-84.
Trittin, H. and Schoeneborn, D. (2015). Diversity as Polyphony: Reconceptualizing Diversity
Management from a Communication-Centered Perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 144(2),
pp.305-322.
Woolworths Sustainability Report. (2018). [online] Woolworths Group Ltd, p.14. Available at:
https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/icms_docs/195398_2018-sustainability-report.pdf
Woolworthsgroup.com.au. (2020). Our Businesses - Woolworths Group. [online] Available at:
https://www.woolworthsgroup.com.au/page/about-us/our-brands/ [Accessed 10 Apr. 2020].

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