Analyzing Employee Resistance to Change and Gender Pay Gap Strategies

This report delves into the critical role of Human Resources (HR) in navigating organizational change and addressing the persistent issue of the gender pay gap. The report begins by examining the reasons behind employee resistance to change, including job security concerns, fear of the unknown, and disruptions to established routines. It then outlines actionable strategies for HR managers to mitigate this resistance, such as effective change management implementation, employee engagement, and a phased approach to change implementation. The second part of the report focuses on the gender pay gap, defining the concept and differentiating it from equal pay. It explores the underlying causes of the gender pay gap, including undervaluing women's work, male-dominated leadership roles, and the impact of part-time work and stereotypes. Finally, the report presents HR strategies for addressing the gender pay gap, emphasizing the importance of HR analytics, fair payment practices, and transparent recruitment and performance evaluation processes. The report provides a comprehensive overview of these challenges and offers practical solutions for HR professionals.

Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Task A..............................................................................................................................................1
Why Employees Often Resist Change.........................................................................................1
What HR Managers Can Do To Reduce the Extent of Such Resistance?...................................2
Task B..............................................................................................................................................5
Gender Pay Gap...........................................................................................................................5
Differences between gender pay gap and Equal pay...................................................................6
Reasons for gender pay gap.........................................................................................................7
HR strategies to Address Gender Pay Gap..................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference.......................................................................................................................................10

Introduction
Today one of the most important role for the managers is to handle their existing human resource
and use it in an effective way. Thus the emergence of strategic human resource management is
significantly affecting the organizations. Accelerated changes over the period of time and
tottering environment is now forcing organizations to be flexible with the employees. Strategic
human resource management is the complex process that helps organizations to consolidate and
evaluate current viewpoint of the employees and organization.
Task A
Why Employees Often Resist Change
For Organizations it is very baffling and frustrating when the employees of the organization
resist to changes that organization is willing to implement for the betterment. In various previous
researches, there are different reasons explained for the employees’ resistance to change. Some
of them are given below:
Loss of the job
This is one of the major reason behind employees’ resistance to change. When the organization
decides to change in case of technological advancement production cost efficiency etc. The
employees think that there is a high chance that the organization will cut down some of the jobs
(Alvesson and Sveningsson 2008). They think that their post will be eliminated due to the
change.
Unknown fear
Most of the employees have a great fear about the changes that the organizations want to
implement (Senior and Fleming, 2006). For example there were old people in workplace who do
not know much about latest technology and thus they have a fear when the organizations want to
implement latest technology. Employees have fear and wonder about the changes and how it will
affect them.
A feel of challenge
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When organizations decide to implement changes, the employees feel challenged and when they
fill challenge they resist. When employees feel challenged due to changes they grow a resistance
inside the mind as a fear of losing job or a cut down of the salary (Holbeche, 2006).
Loss of routine
Employees are adopted and addicted with their daily routine in workplace. In that way they
develop a controllable perspective over their daily life but when organizations decide to change
this routine breaks. This make them feel that their control over their life is losing.
Preset mind
In organizations most of the employees have only one job as an income source and satisfy their
daily needs. When organization decides to implement some changes their preset mind hit them
back with questions like will the change affect the income? Will the change simplify or
complicate their work? Will the change decrease the connection with organization? etc. (Adler,
2003)
Rewarding
It is common mistake that employees make about changes that there will be no such reward for
them in the change that the organizations want to implement. When organizations talk about
changes employees think about what's in it for me (WIIFM) (Herscovitch and Meyer, 2002). The
employees feel no motivation for the change and thus they resist.
What HR Managers Can Do To Reduce the Extent of Such Resistance?
To overcome the situation of resistance in change different Scholars described different ways.
1. Effective implementation of Change management in the first time
It is the duty of the organization to implement Change management effectively so that the
employees feel safe and increase the support to the change. In its running path organizations
need to implement changes every now and then for the betterment of the organization (Kotter
and Cohen 2012). So it is very important that organizations carefully implement Change
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management in the most effective way. Resistance is normal for employees but it is the duty of
the managers to implement Change management in a good way to mitigate the resistance.
Effective Change management will also help organization to motivate the employees about the
change and engage the employees with the change. Below is a picture that shows what the
managers can do if effectively Change management was applied:
Figure: Resistance to change (Mabey and Mayon-White, 2003)
To effectively implement Change management for the first time in an organization managers
should be careful about the following steps
 Structural change of Mind approach should be used at the initiation of the change.
 Use the senior employees all leaders to backup and sponsor the change for rest of the
employees.
 Middle level managers and the supervisors should be used as advocate of the changes.
 The employee should have a clear idea of the change and the benefit that they will get
due to the change.
2. Effectively engage employees
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It is very important for the organizations to keep the employees in the loop. The employees are
the most valuable asset and vital part of the organizations as they manage the customers and do
the production works. Organizations before change and after change should allow a feedback
process that describe the experience of the employees before and after the change. Managers
should ask the employees questions about the change what are the experiences of the employees
about the change? What the organization should do to make it better? Which type of employee
engagement attitude from the organization will also help organizations to convince employees
that organization is thinking about them? (Carnall, 2007) It will also work as a motivational
factor for the employees.
3. Do the change but in step by step
There is no doubt that changes are needed in every organizations (Abrahamson, 2000). But
keeping in mind the employee resistance to change organization should implement the change
step by step not at once. It will help the employees to adopt with the change and develop
necessary skills and attitudes to cope up with the change.
4. Effective communication about the change
The most effective way for the organization and its managers to communicate changes to let the
employees know every detail about the change. In this case organization can make formal and
informal communication with the employees to ensure that they receive news about the changes
continuously. Managers needed to do a great role in developing effective communication with
the employees about changes. Effective communication about change will also help
organizations make a clear vision about the change among the employees (Green, 2009).
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Task B
Gender Pay Gap
In simple words gender pay gap means the percentage of difference of the incomes for men and
women in organizations. Gender pay gap is a well-known scholarly analysis for different
researchers because it is significantly connected with the Social awareness and Justice, equality
between men and women and mobility of the economy of a country. For organizations beside
these above factors gender pay gap is also connected with talent acquisition, talent development
and talent retention. Gender pay gap is not only a matter for the on the developed or developing
countries only but also it is seen in developed countries. According to the survey of OECD
(2018) in 2017 the men working in UK earned around 19% more than that of women. The survey
also showed that almost half of the men are earning more than half of the women in UK. Below
is a graph that shows the differences between the earnings of men and women for both full time
jobs and part time jobs. The gender pay gap has fallen from 27.5% to 18.4% since 1997 to 2017.
According to the graph the gender pay gap has fallen around 9.1 % since 1997 to 2017 for full
time workers but in case of part time workers women are now earning more than men and it is
about 5.1 % more than the earning of men.
Figure: Gender gap in different timely jobs (OECD, 2018)
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Differences between gender pay gap and Equal pay
It is clear that there are significant differences between gender pay gap and equal pay. first of all
in gender pay gap the differences between men and women's average pay is determined while in
equal pay there is a clear and legal obligation under the equality act 2010 where the law say that
employers are required to provide both men and women the same and equal wage for the work
they do or if they are doing same type of works. By the act organizations should understand that
if they fail to pay women similarly like men for the same type of job it would be unlawful but
having a gender gap in the organization is not unlawful.
Organizations that have gender gap in their payment system is considered Biased towards the
man while organizations that follow equal pay system is considered as a socially ethical
organization.
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Reasons for gender pay gap
Evaluation of work
In many organizations the valuation of the work of women are not justified. Today women are
equally educated and in some cases better were you created than men and have as much
experience as men. They now have the equal right to pursue a high paying career like men. But it
is unfortunate to say that there are not many organizations that have women in their top
positions. There are organizations that do not value the work that women do like the men.
According to the research of Goldin & Rouse (2000) there are several fields where women are
now paid less where men were paid higher before.
Male dominated high positions
Women are better in education but they end up in employment sectors where a narrow financial
support is given. In most of the top positions the male dominate and paid a handsome salary.
There are many cases where men get the positions due to their gender though there are skilled
and experienced women candidates.
Part time work effects:
Women who stopped work for a while work as a part timer are paid less than that of men as
organizations think that these women will stop working after a few days are they are happy with
a minimum wages as they were doing part time jobs.
Stereotype attitude:
One of the primary reason behind gender gap pay is that real eyes are stereotype attitude among
the organizations that women are not seeking promotions or they are not willing to take
responsibilities. According to the survey of Goldin (2014) in organizations women are taking
45% of the total responsibilities while only 35% of the women are given the positions of
managers of directors.
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HR strategies to Address Gender Pay Gap
HR Analytics should identify the inequalities and address the inequalities between men and
women and their salaries. This type of reports should help HR managers to see at a glance what
the inequalities that women are facing in this organization. The common strategies that HR
managers should take to reduce gender pay gap are given below:
Right payment
As mentioned before it is not unlawful when organizations adopt gender pay gap but it is in some
cases disrespectful for the women working and experiencing gender pay gap. To respect the
actions of the women and how well they managing responsibilities in organizations, they should
be provided with the right payment (Firth and Kneebone, 2008). Besides that the payment
structure of organizations should be reviewed and evaluated every now and then. The HR
strategy should be set on such a manner that the employees have the right to review the payments
structure of the organization they are working in.
Transparent recruitment process and performance evaluation
They HR strategies should involve with transparent recruitment process where men and women
have equal chances to get selected. Transparency is needed in every step of recruitment, selection
and training and development process.
After ensuring transparency in the recruitment, selection and training and development process
the HR Team should evaluate the performance level of the employees for both men and women
equally. By doing so the HR team could analyze what men are doing for the organization and
what women are doing for the organization. It would be then clear that men and women are
equally contributing for the organizations so that they deserve an equal payment structure
(Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007).
Working flexibility
There are many organizations for men are free to work from their home and have the ability to
rotate their working position. Women should be given flexibility like this. As mentioned in the
book of Blau and Lawrence (2017) flexible working for both men and women will increase
productivity and profit for any organization.
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Conclusion
In the recent years strategic human resource management identified different characteristic of
organizations and its employees like gender pay gap, equal pay, change management for the
employees, performance management. That is why SHRM has become strategic partner for
every organization to handle the emerging difficulties about the valuable employees.
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Reference
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Adler, Nancy J. (2003). International dimensions of organizational behavior. Cincinnati, Ohio:
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Alvesson, M., and Sveningsson, S. (2008). Changing organizational culture. USA: Routledge
Publishing.
Blau, Francine D., and Lawrence M. Kahn. (2017). "The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and
Explanations." Journal of Economic Literature, 55(3): 789-865.
Carnall, C. (2007). Managing Change In Organizations. Harlow: Pearson Education.
Firth, L. and Kneebone, S. (2008). The gender gap. Cambridge: Independence.
Goldin, C. (2014). A grand gender convergence: Its last chapter. The American Economic
Review, 104(4), 1091-1119.
Goldin, C., & Rouse, C. (2000). Orchestrating impartiality: The impact of" blind" auditions on
female musicians. American Economic Review, 90(4), 715-741.
Green, M. (2009). Change management masterclass. London: Kogan Page.
Herscovitch, L. and J. P. Meyer (2002). ‘Commitment to organisational change: Extension of a
three-component model', Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, pp. 474–487.
Holbeche, L. (2006). Understanding Change. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Kotter, J. and Cohen, D. (2012). The heart of change. Harvard Business Review Press. Boston,
Mass.
Mabey,C and Mayon-White, B (2003). Managing Change, London, PCP Publishing.
Niederle, Muriel, and Lise Vesterlund. (2007). “Do Women Shy Away From Competition? Do
Men Compete Too Much?” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 122 (3): 1067–1101.
OECD (2018), Gender wage gap (indicator). DOI: 10.1787/7cee77aa-en (Accessed on 07
August 2018)
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Senior, B. and Fleming, J. (2006). Organizational Change. FT/Prentice Hall.
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