Gender Imbalance and Remuneration Disparity in Australian Economy

You will choose one of three news stories that will be provided on Moodle by Week 6, and discuss the challenges that arise for managing and retaining staff in that organisation.

Human resource generally refers to the employees of any business or corporate organization who are regarded to be a significant asset for the organizations in terms of the skills and the abilities that they display at their concerned workplaces (Kehoe & Wright, 2013). The human resource department of the concerned industry might deal with the management of the employees of the organization and their performance within the organization (Cascio, 2018).

The following report analyses the news report that was published by Hilton in the year 2017 regarding the issues that the Australian economy has been facing due to the gender imbalance and the imparity in the remuneration that is extended towards the employees of the organisation. The report discusses the issues that are faced by the human resource managers in terms of the employee relations, the rewards and the motivation that needs to be provided to the concerned staff and the rate of the turnover of the staff, who have been serving the organization. The issues that are majorly highlighted in the case study are enlisted below:

• Imparity in the payments that are extended towards the employees
• The imbalance in the workforce pertaining to the genders of the employees
• The subtlety in the usage of the languages in the advertisements.

The report further analyses the given case study based on the various other studies that have been conducted on the mentioned issues and attempts to find common grounds based on the secondary literature. The report concludes with recommendations on the selected issues and the ways which the human resource managers of the concerned organization might assist the concerned employees in the areas that they might face difficulties.

According to a report by the concern, the number of the employers who have taken steps for the increase in the maintenance of the equality of the gender of the staff have increased in the Australian economy. The director of the agency reported the fact that there has been a phenomenal increase in the number of the employees belonging to different genders. However, the director also opines that there does still exist an issue with the pay gaps among the employees of the concern. The remuneration that is extended towards the staff of the concern seems to be mostly in favour of the male employees of the concern. The news article portrays the fact that the payment of the remuneration that is to be extended towards the employees of the organisation seem to be in favour of the male employees who have been serving the institutions. This might hamper the corporate relationship that exists among the employees of the concerned organisation. The continued receipt of the lower wage as compared to the male counterparts might lead the female employees of the concern to develop a feeling that they are not being treated equally by the management of the concerned organisation. This might also result in the conditions whereby a remarkable increase might be noticed in the turnover of the female staff of the organisation. The turnover might result in the loss of the able employees in the concern. The news story further points out that there is a lack of parity in the initial remuneration that has been promised to the male and the female employees even when they had similar amounts of experience and were appointed for similar job roles within the organisation.

HRM Issues Faced by Organizations

According to the CEO of Peoplebank, extending training towards the concerned staff of the institution might lead to the addressal of the issues that the Australian economy had been facing in terms of the payments that are made for the efforts that they put forth for maintaining the functionality of the concerned company. The CEO further suggests that the employees should be made aware of the various biases that exists among the employees of the concern. These biases are generally based on the subtlety of the language that is used by the various companies while advertising for the recruitment of the staff of the company. In order to remove the biases that exists among the various employees of the organisation, it is necessary for the concerned employer to gain knowledge on the issues that pertain to the creation of the concerned biases. These biases might lead to higher amounts of turnover among the employees of the concern. The greatest challenge that is faced by the employers in the current economic condition of the country is the increase in the rate of employee turnover. The language that is been used in the advertisements also tend to use languages that might subtly pass on the indication that the employers might want to employ male employees for the organisation. This has proved to be an issue with the potential employers of the country.

The managing director of SAP Australia and New Zealand opines that one of the ways to improve the pay gap that exists within the Australian economy might be to ensure the fact that the starting salaries for the employees of both the genders would be similar keeping in mind the fact that the experiences and the roles of the employees would remain the same and would not be affected by their genders (Hilton, 2017). The number of female employees who have been joining the workforce is also reported to be low due to the lack of parity in the initial payment that is offered to the female employees of the concern despite the fact that they have been hired for similar job roles and have a similar level of past experiences regarding the concerned job.

Employee Relationship Challenges

The industry relations of an organization refer to the study of the various informal and the formal rules which aim to regulate the relationship between the employees and the employers as well as the social procedures that help in the creation and the enforcement of the rules that need to be obeyed by the employees of the organization. The various people who are involved in the regulation process are the employees, their associations, their unions, the government and the other industry tribunals (Perkmann et al., 2013). There are three different approaches that might be taken during the study of the industry relations, the Marxist approach, the pluralist approach and the unitary approach.

Analysis of the Given Case Study

According to the Marxist approach to the conflicts that arise within the organization might be viewed to be a product of the society that maintains a capitalist approach. (Brewster & Hegewisch, 2017). These two groups generally refer to those that either own the resources that are required or own the power to deliver only the labour that is needed to complete the task at hand.

According to Becker (2013), the unitary approach towards the industry relations that exist within the concerned company relies on the formation of the unions among the employees of the concerned organisation. The formation of the unions might help in the improvement of the payment issues that exist among the employees of the various genders by putting forth the issues that they have been facing in the concerned workplaces. Albrecht et al. (2015) assumes that the management of the concern must take care of the common interests of the staff thereby promoting the conditions of harmony within the organization. This approach towards the industry relations does take into consideration the facts that the employees might exercise their power of dealing with the management regarding the issues that they might be facing while serving the concerned organization.

According to the pluralist approach towards the industry relations, the organization is perceived to be a coalition of the various competing interests that exists within the organization. Smith (2015) opines that the employee union of the that exists within the organization is considered to be one of the most legitimate representations of the interests of the employees who have been serving the organization. The inevitability of the conflicts between the employees and the management of a certain organization is highlighted by the pluralist approach (Alfes et al., 2013). The employer union must promote the increase in the remuneration that has been awarded to the female staff of the company so as to make them on an equal stand along with their male counterparts.

Motivation and rewards

The recruitment process of an organization refers to the activity that is carried on by the organization mainly for the identification and the attraction of the potential employees of the concerned organization. Sheehan, (2014) argue that the recruitment activities generally focus on affecting the huge number of people who apply for the vacancies that have been advertised by the company. The recruitment procedures of the organizations also aim at assuming the fact that the concerned candidates who have applied for the jobs will be accepting the offers that might be extended towards them. The concerned organization might implement a number of policies in order to affect the various systems and practices that are prevalent within the concerned organization (Brewster et al., 2016). These policies do aim at influencing the attitudes, behaviour and the performance of the employees of the organization.

Recommendations and Conclusions

Recruitment might be one of the various processes that might be used for the closing the gap that exists in the various organizations that have been functioning within the country. The recruitment procedures of the concerns might assist in the process of eradicating the imbalance that exists in the various organizations operating in Australia. The vacancies that might arise in the organizations might be filled by both internal and external recruitments. The remuneration that is promised to the employees should be the same irrespective of the gender of the concerned employee. This might ensure the coverage of the existent gaps in the fields of the pay of the male and the female employees of the concern

According to Greenwood (2013), selection refers to the process wherein a business organization decides on the person who should be allowed to be a part of the same. The selection procedures of the employees that are decided over a long course of time do affect the ability of the concerned organization to adapt to the changes, to grow with the advances and most importantly to survive in the industry which seems to be changing at a very fast pace. The most common selection process is interviewing the potential employee. The interview should be oriented on a future timeline while being based on the past experiences of the interviewee. The interview should be focussed and based on the situation that the organisation might be currently facing during the time of the interview (Martin et al., 2016). In order to deal with the condition that has been presented within the given news story, the human resource personnel must ensure the selection of the female employees in the higher posts of the concerned organizations.

Employee turnover and retention

The training of the workforce refers to the development of the skills of the concerned workforce on the matters that widely pertain to the job profile that have been assigned to the concerned employee (Motamed, Yarmohammadian & Yousefy, 2013). The training of the staff is conducted through the interventions that enable the concerned employee to learn in a planned manner. The training of the employees lays its focus mainly on the identification and the development of the competencies of the concerned employee that might help to enhance the performance of the employees in the concerned organisation. The key goal of the training procedure is to improve the attitude, the skills and the knowledge of the concerned employee in terms of the job profile that they have been assigned at the organisation (Cavanagh, McNeil & Bartram, 2013).

The human resource personnel of an organisation must ensure that the employees are properly trained in order to help to solve the imbalanced conditions that have been existing in the Australian economy. The human resource staff of the organisation should ensure that no biasness exists within the organisation regarding the gender issues in the higher level staff of the organisation (Sparrow, Brewster & Chung, 2016). The amount of remuneration that is to be awarded to the staff working at a certain position in the organisation should be equal for the employees of both the genders.

The development of an organisation depends on the overall development of the concern and includes all the spheres of development mainly the individual developments, the developments in the careers of the concerned employees and the development of the organisation as a whole (Thunnissen, Boselie & Fruytier, 2013). The human resource development utilises the integrated use of the training and the development of the organisation and the career of the concerned individual in order to improve the effectiveness on all the levels.

In order to address the issues that are faced by the Australian economy, the human resource management departments at the various organisations might aim to improve the performance of the concerned employees through the ways of providing training that might in turn help them to acquire higher positions in the organisation thereby lowering the imbalance that is observed in the distribution of the genders at the various workplaces and the payrolls of the concerned employees. In order to cope up with the situation that the Australian economy has been currently facing, the human resource departments of the organisations might introduce the integrated training procedures among the existing staff of the organisation and might also take steps in order to motivate the female employees to serve in the higher ranks within the organisation.

Conclusion

In lieu of the above discussion it might safely be said that the Australian economy needs to improve in the matters that pertain to the differing payrolls and the gender inequality in the matters that are related to the payments that are directed towards the employees of the various organisations that have been operating within the country. The human resource department needs to implement measures that ensure the recruitment of the female employees at the higher positions in the concerned organisation which might lead to the lowering of the gap between the remuneration that is extended towards the employees of the organisation. The remuneration that is offered by the organisation should be irrespective of the gender of the employee which would eventually lead to the lowering of the gender imbalance in terms of the payments received against the specified job role that had been assigned to the concerned employee.

• Incorporation of more female employees in the workplaces that have been operative in the country.
• Implementing laws for bringing about the parity in the initial amount of remuneration that is offered to the employees irrespective of their gender.
• The female members of the workforce must be provided with higher amounts of motivation so that they may join the workforce alongside their male counterparts.
• The female employees of the organisation must be encouraged to avail promotions in the roles that they play at the concerned workplaces.
• The remuneration that company has been offering to the employees should not differ for the male and the female employees.
• The salary for a certain post should be based on the roles and responsibilities of the person who has been appointed to serve the company in the concerned position.
• The management of the concern must take care of the fact that the employees who have been appointed in the roles of the supervisors do not display any form of biasness for the employees belonging to the fairer sex.

References

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