Torrens University: MGMT6012 Report on Telstra's Diversity Challenges

This report, prepared by Narinder Singh for Torrens University Australia, examines the lack of organizational diversity within Telstra, an Australian telecommunications company. The report begins with an introduction and justification for selecting Telstra, followed by a discussion of the qualitative research methodology employed, including case studies and face-to-face interviews. It analyzes the diversity issues faced by Telstra, focusing on the challenges related to employee progression, sexual orientation, age, ethnicity, and disability. The report reviews relevant management theories and critically evaluates the roles of ethics and diversity within the organization. Based on the data analysis, the report provides recommendations to Telstra's management to improve diversity and inclusion, concluding with a summary of key findings and suggestions for future action. The report highlights how diversity, when properly managed, can enhance relationships, foster innovation, and overcome business barriers, while also acknowledging the ethical implications of diversity and inclusion within the workplace.

MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVES
Narinder Singh
Student ID: 00269351T
Torrens University Australia
Author Note

Executive Summary
The purpose of this report will be to discuss the lack of organizational diversity within Telstra,
which is am Australian telecommunication organization. A brief justification of selection of this
organization along with an introduction will be the first topic that will be discussed in this paper,
which will be followed by a methodology, which will discuss the qualitative research method
and the techniques used to collect the data from this particular business house. The data analysis
along with the interpretation technique will also be discussed in this paper, along with a review
of management theory that has been discussed in the modules and relevant to the selected issue
of Telstra, which is organizational diversity. Critical evaluation of the role of ethics and diversity
that is relevant to this business entity will play an important part of discussion in this paper.
From the findings of the analysed data, recommendations and suggestions will be provided to the
management of this company, so that the diversity issues can be improved for future purposes. A
brief conclusion will end the discussion in this report, where key findings of the paper will be
included.

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Organizational Overview and Reason for Selection of this Company............................................4
Methodology....................................................................................................................................6
Issue faced by Telstra......................................................................................................................7
Organizational Diversity..............................................................................................................7
Role of Ethics and Diversity............................................................................................................8
Recommendations............................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10

Introduction
The main objective of this report will be to discuss the lack of organizational diversity
within the organization of Telstra, a telecommunication organization based in Australia. Critical
evaluation of the identified issue within this business house will be discussed in this report. A
brief justification of selection of this organization along with an introduction will be the first
topic that will be discussed in this paper, which will be followed by a methodology, which will
discuss the qualitative research method and the techniques used to collect the data from this
particular business house. The data analysis along with the interpretation technique will also be
discussed in this paper, along with a review of management theory that has been discussed in the
modules and relevant to the selected issue of Telstra. Critical evaluation of the role of ethics and
diversity that is relevant to this business entity will play an important part of discussion in this
paper. From the findings of the analysed data, recommendations and suggestions will be
provided to the management of this company, so that the diversity issues can be improved for
future purposes. A brief conclusion will end the discussion in this report, where key findings of
the paper will be included.
Organizational Overview and Reason for Selection of this Company
As discussed, the selected organization for this report is Telstra. Telstra Corporation
Limited is a telecommunication company from Australia which was founded in the year 1975.
Headquarter of this company from the telecommunication industry is in Melbourne and are
engaged in building and operating telecommunication networks along with mobile, markets
voice, access of internet, pay television and other products and services (telstra.com.au, 2020).
Some of the products offered by the management of this business entity is are served to the

people globally and the rest served to the people within the region of Australia. The organization
is fully privatized now and had undergone changes within the organization to tackle the diversity
issues among the workforce of the company, so that more customer centric approaches can be
followed by the people working in Telstra through the wide array of products and services that
are manufactured and offered by them. In this context, it can be said that there are almost 26,000
employees working in this organization across the world (telstra.com.au, 2020).
They also own and operate a chain of retail stores which is known as Telstra Stores. They
are the largest producer of fixed-line services within the region of Australia. Home phone along
with business and other PSTN products are included in this service. The majority of the public
telephones used in the market place of Australia are also owned by this business entity, though
the number has decreased due to increase in the usage of mobiles and vandalism issues. In this
context, it can be noted that they has become the largest service providers in the context of
mobile telephone, in terms of both coverage and subscriptions. Largest GSM as well as 3G
UMTS, which is branded as the Next G services are offered by Telstra only within the market
places of Australia. The GSM network offered by them is also the first digital mobile network in
the region of Australia. The network of Next G also provides the largest wireless network
coverage through BigPond within the Australian market, which reaches to 99% of the overall
population of the place (telstra.com.au, 2020).
Telstra remain the leading service provider of telecommunication products and services
in the Australian market place in spite of the arrival of the main competitor Optus. Due to the
leading position that is maintained by Telstra in the telecommunication sector of Australia and
the management had already faced diversity issues and had undergone changes under the
leadership of David Thodey, who was the Chief Executive Officer before the current CEO, who

is Andrew Penn, this company has been selected to discuss the diversity issues which has been
faced by them and what are the steps they can follow in order to resolve the issues and focus on
the quality of the products and services that are offered by them, so that the leading position can
be maintained in this highly competitive global business world (Gregory, 2018).
Methodology
It has been already stated that qualitative research method will be undertaken to collect
and analysis the data to find out the diversity issues that has been faced by the management of
this organization. This will help to provide proper recommendations to the leaders of Telstra so
that they can cope up with the situation and can maintain the leading position in the market place
of Australia. Case study research along with face-to-face interview will be performed to collect
the data from the organization of Telstra, so that the expected outcomes can be achieved and
recommendations will be provided according to that. In this context, it can be said that it is a
research method which involves researches from markets, which will help to achieve
conversational as well as open-ended communications between the persons involved in the
overall research process. In-depth interviews with the higher management along with the
employees who are working in this organization will help to know the diversity issues
thoroughly and will provide the opportunity to provide efficient and effective recommended
actions that need to be followed by the higher management. Precise data can be gathered to
analyze the diversity issues faced by this organization, whereas case study research will help to
go through the cases that has been faced by the employees of this organization from the
viewpoint of organizational diversity, which plays an integral part in the modern global business
environment (Lawrence & Tar, 2013).

A large amount will be collected through the process of data collection method through
taking interviews along with reviewing the case studies related to the organizational diversity
issues of Telstra. This need to be provided by the higher authority with due permission of
gathering and analyzing the data gathered. Text analysis will be used to analyze the data that will
be gathered from case study and in-depth interviews. This method will help to analyze the social
life of the people who are associated with this business entity and decode the actions, words and
other things related to the person who will be interviewed. Real-time can be gathered through
this method and analyzed as the persons who are facing the diversity issues or problems can be
interviewed. This will also help to achieve effective outcomes. Multiple forms of data like
observations, interviews and documents can be gathered by following this research method and
will help to solve the complex issue of organizational diversity by analyzing the collected data.
Employees of Telstra can rely upon the researchers and trust can be built between the people
involved in the overall research process. Unadulterated, raw and efficient data can be gathered
through this process, which will help to achieve the flexibility through the data gathered in the
research process (Lourenço, Dimas & Rebelo, 2014).
Issue faced by Telstra
Organizational Diversity
Diversity has been always a sensitive issue within the organizational culture of various
business houses across the world. In this context, it can be stated that the term organizational
diversity mentions the overall constitution of the workforce of an organization along with the
inclusion of the diversity of that workforce. The term diversity mentions the differences that are
possessed within the workforce in different personal traits like gender, marital status, age, race,
religion, ethnic origin, education and other qualities (Sheehan, & Anderson, 2015). Thus, from

the above discussion, it can be said that the term organizational diversity mentions the equality of
employment and opportunity without any presence of biasness because of the above mentioned
traits. It can also be said in this context that it has become a common scenario in various
organizations across the world to follow organizational diversity among the workforce possessed
by them. Issues or problems are also faced by the management of these organizations while
following and maintaining organizational diversity within the culture of the businesses operated
by them (DUNN et al., 2014).
Telstra along with many other companies has faced complaints regarding inclusion of
having a diversified workforce among the organization (Ryan & Ryan, 2020). Fresh surveys
were conducted among the workplaces of the region of Australia and it has been found that
employers are not putting their attention on the issue of diversity and their inclusion into the
workforce of the organizations (workplaceinfo.com.au, 2020). The same was found against the
organization of Telstra, and it has been found that the employees are facing barriers in
progression to their careers as the management is reluctant to follow organizational diversity.
This has also hampered the flow of the business operations along with the quality of the products
and services offered by this Australian company. Employees are getting demotivated due to all
these factors, and as a result the overall production level of both the employees as well as the
organization are getting decreased. Progression in their respective fields have
become limited due to facing issues related to sexual orientation, age,
ethnicity, disability or gender (Casad & Bryant, 2016).
Role of Ethics and Diversity
Ethics and diversity plays an integral role in an organizational culture. Diversity, as
discussed, can be regarded as the ways through which people are differentiated within those

companies which possess the power to affect the relationship or performance among the
employees, whereas ethics is the study related to moral obligation, or dividing the right from
wrong and involves all the acts related to social responsibility and ethical decisions. Diversity
cannot be fully termed as an ethical issue, as it differs from persons to persons who works in the
same organization (Goyal & Shrivastava 2013). But it can be stated that if diversity is followed,
better results are accomplished along with building a stronger workforce. It also helps to enhance
the relationships between the people who are working together in organizations like Telstra and
can possess better communication between them (Lambert, 2016). All these results helps to
make innovative things along with overcoming the barriers that comes during the operations of
business. But, issues are also there with diversity and ethics and the same has been identified in
Telstra. Some of the employees, who are mainly from other religion and race has seen that they
are not getting the same benefits from the management though their performances are good and
peers and colleagues who hold same or lower position in comparison to them are getting
promoted to the next level. This has hampered the brand image of the organization as well as
deteriorated the services of the products and services that are offered by this business house in
the market places where they perform. All these was also hampering the ethical business
approaches that were followed by Telstra management, and it can be stated in this context that
ethical business approaches help an organization to follows the sustainability along with
competitive advantage against the rival business entities like Optus. Telstra was losing the
customer base that they enjoyed due to all these negative impacts in terms of organizational
diversity (Awino, 2013).

Recommendations
The first and foremost recommended action that needs to be followed is to follow a
diverse organizational culture, where performance will be the only thing to be present as a
benchmark. Performances of the employees will help them to reach out to the next level and no
diversity issues related to the caste, religion, age, gender, marital status and other factors will
hamper the unity of the workplace of Telstra (Buttner & Tullar, 2018).
Flexibility and fair business approaches need to be followed by the management of
Telstra while evaluating the performances of their employees. All should be treated equally and
no partiality or biased approaches will be followed. Gender equality need to be followed strictly
and as recommended earlier, performances of the individual employees will be the only
benchmark along with following the ethics, rules and regulations related to organizational
diversity (Saxena, 2014).
Strict rules need to be designed and implemented by the human resource management of
the organization of Telstra. Employees who will not follow these will face strict actions, which
might be termination of contracts that are held between Telstra and their employees. This will
help to reduce organizational diversity issues and a fair flow of business operations can be
performed by the management of Telstra (Benschop et al., 2015).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be stated that Telstra need to follow the recommended
actions discussed in order to overcome the issues related to organizational diversity, which will
help them to maintain the leading position in the Australian market place and offer the high
quality products and services to the people of Australia and other parts of the world where they
have their presence.

References
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