Question

Alan Smith was the senior manager of a marketing and sales team at a medical devices company. Since his team was all together at a large off-site company event for three days (something rare given their travel schedules), he had pulled them together to discuss an important hire. The team needed to choose someone for a key management role with core responsibilities, such as attracting new business and promoting overall revenue growth.
After sorting through a large pool of applicants, he and several others on the team had narrowed down the field to two well-qualified internal candidates. Smith was now meeting with this team and with his own boss present to decide which of the two to hire. Even though Smith was not the most senior person there, he was clearly the one authorized to make the decision. He had decided at the outset to be in “listening” mode so as not to potentially bias the team toward his viewpoint, but rather to let them speak freely.
The first candidate was Mita Anand, who had excellent performance metrics. She was known to be a broad thinker, very outgoing, and willing to speak her mind.
The second candidate was John Merriweather. He was also a consistently strong performer, and he had a good reputation throughout the company. Culturally, he would be an easy fit with the rest of the team as well, having a similar temperament, interests, and points of view on most matters.
For the first few minutes of the discussion, various team members spoke about their experiences with, and opinions of, one or both candidates. Because both were unambiguously strong performers on the metrics used in their current roles, the discussion was so far confirming the choice of these two as the finalists, but wasn’t moving the needle clearly in the direction of either Anand or Merriweather. Until, that is, Elliott Bowers (a team manager who would be at an equivalent level with the candidate eventually chosen) spoke up.
“I’m surprised no one has mentioned what happened last night, since I know many of you noticed it,” Bowers began. “At the party last night, Mita did that wild group karaoke on stage. I heard she stayed out all night. I just don’t think it’s appropriate for a manager in our industry—let alone a mother—to behave like that.”
“Yes, it was pretty noticeable,” agreed another team member, who then asked, “But there weren’t any clients in the room, were there?”
“No, but I just don’t know if I can really trust her decision-making if that is how she behaves,” Bowers replied.A few others nodded their head in apparent agreement, but no one picked up on Bowers’s thread directly. Instead, the next comment moved back to a question about whose specific background experiences might be more valuable in the managerial role. Although Smith didn’t ask for a straw vote to see where people were at, he sensed that the group had begun to lean toward Merriweather.
After a few more minutes of discussion where nothing particularly differentiating was said, Smith sensed the conversation had reached a point of diminishing return, and thus brought the meeting to a close. He thanked everyone for their contribution, and said he would let them know his decision soon.

Question 3 :
As a leader, provide recommendations on how to apply gender Equality in your Organization ?

Answer 1

GENDER EQUALITY

Gender equality is more than a goal in itself; it is a pre-condition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, building good governance, and promoting sustainable development.

In today’s dynamic business environment, achieving gender equality is considered to be the essential factor for competitiveness and growth of any organization. To create an inclusive and dynamic economy, it has to be ensured that everyone has got an equal opportunity to succeed. Gender inequality in the workplace has plagued the global economy for many decades; if it is not addressed by integrating women as an integral part of the workforce in general, it loses out on the skills, ideas, improved decision-making, and perspectives that are essential to address the global issues and to harness new scopes and opportunities.

As a leader, these are below mentioned ways through which gender equality at workplace can be achieved:

1. Considering Leadership Roles for both Men and Women

It is a commonly mistaken belief that only men thrive in leadership roles and women are apt for support-oriented roles. These types of stereotypes form the base for gender discrimination at the workplace.

If men are more likely to spend time with senior executives, work on the most important projects or meet the most valuable clients, they’ll be more impressive candidates for promotion. Companies should have processes in place so all employees meet the same standards as they progress through their careers, which helps ensure they all get the same exposure to training and opportunities.

Individuals with right attributes deserve a leader’s role. A great way to promote gender equality is by granting leadership roles for deserving candidates, irrespective of their gender. With a better representation of women in leadership roles inadvertently improves gender equality at the workplace as more women will be hired across the board. Also, with a high number of women in leadership roles, there will be a higher percentage of female employees entering due to opportunities in career advancement and mentorship.

2. Remove the gender pay gap

Women professionals are often discriminated against through lower wages/salaries, as well as limited opportunities and promotion to managerial and senior roles. This is discrimination, and de-motivating for women employees.
The gender pay gap can only continue if a culture of secrecy is encouraged within a company. A new culture of transparency needs to be introduced which challenges a company to investigate the pay gap between women and men and stops asking candidates what they were paid for their last job. Instead, each position should have a pay bracket that outlines the salary for that role. Buffer, the social media management platform is an excellent example of a company that has embraced transparency across the entire organisation. While going to these lengths is not ideal for most companies, the pay brackets for each position should be outlined to eliminate any bias.

Companies should start taking steps to offer equal pay for women as they are no longer considered as a weak gender anymore. Such a mechanism removes financial barriers between men and women. Leaders should also audit their payroll, and increase pay for women who have been short-changed.

3. Promote work-life balance

A balance between life and work is fundamental for all employees, but it matters even more to ladies raising children or planning a family. Let your workers do part of their jobs remotely and it will drastically improve their position within your team.

It will probably turn out to be a great thing for your company in general because work-life balance makes people happier and turns them into super-productive employees.

To ensure employees aren’t leaving the workplace because of punishing hours or work rules, employers should give them more control over their schedules and not prioritize time in the office over delivering results (“face time over the bottom line”). Companies should consider helping pay for child and elder care, and make sure they don’t oversell how family friendly they are to job candidates, which can result in more frustration and exits.

Companies need to play a vital role in supporting mothers by working together to agree on a fair and balanced workplace that will promote productivity, while also allowing flexibility and the option to work remotely where possible.

4. Strict and Effective Policies against Harassment

Some men can’t really understand what it means to have gender equality in the workplace, so they keep repeating the same mistakes all over again. In this case, the only productive solution is to penalise gender-based harassment and let male colleagues pay for their actions.

Such measures can cover anything from salary reduction to contract termination. Despite being very rigid, these types of penalties are necessary if you want to create a female-friendly work environment.

At any workplace, on an average one out of four women have been either physically or mentally harassed. It is the employer‘s responsibility to have a keen eye on these issues at an early phase and stop women from getting harassed. Employers should act immediately in such cases to ensure the culprit has been punished, and take necessary measures to help the victim in any possible way. Leaders/employers should take precautionary measures at the workplace to avoid such misdemeanors in the future. Ignorance towards such activities at workplace is a clear indication of gender inequality happening within the organization.

5. Make sure everyone has access to mentors

Companies with mentoring programs shouldn’t insist on same-sex matches. In firms with few senior women, they’re spread too thin and junior women get less attention. Mentoring should include discussing how to ask for a pay raise.

Women must be granted equal learning options and you cannot insist on same-sex partnerships and tutoring relationships.This is particularly important in teams with only a handful of women covering senior management positions. In such circumstances, you need to pair them with male senior managers to ensure quality learning programs. Doing right by women in the workplace does not mean treating them with just respect. It also means not isolating or ignoring them – and making access equal.

6. Recruitment

An efficient recruitment process is key to tackling gender equality. A good place to start is to look at your sourcing strategy, and think about where you are advertising for roles to ensure you reach as many diverse candidates as possible. Plus, consider the language used in job ads and job descriptions, to avoid gender bias.

When it comes to the interview stage, ensure you ask the same questions to all candidates to ensure it is fair for both men and women.During the recruiting process, use clear criteria to select candidates based on the job requirements and role.

Increasing gender diversity via altering hiring practices can be done through:

• Creating an inclusive gender-diverse workplace
• Promoting gender equality with better job descriptions
• Having a diverse interview panel
• Having fair compensation practices
• Learning from exit interviews