Question

please find a recent article with in the last month that relates to any aspect of operations management. Please summarize, point out any key problems, list why those problems occurred and possible solutions.

Also leave link in the response.

Answer 1

The operations management issue that i am choosing here is gender workplace diversity.Diversity in the workplace is a common occurrence workplace nowadays, which is unavoidable. It refers to the variety of differences between individuals in an organization, which encompasses race, age, religion, gender, citizenship, physical condition etc. Gender diversity is related with the equal representation of women and men in the workplace. Work environment in this case is such that women and men are hired and promoted at a same pay rate for equal work.

This issue impacted women at large as organizations are limiting the requirement of women in their company. This made the economy to suffer as this lead to the increase in the level of poverty, national income. An initiative was taken at that time, which was the observation of international women day which is celebrated in March 8. The beginning of international women’s day trace back to the early 20^th century, emerging from the activities of labor movement in North America and Europe and reflecting a growing movement for women to participate equally in society. This issue also led the investors to withdraw their money even at a loss from companies because they considered that organization an unethical.

one of the recent article explains different ways that how women in male dominated society can establish them and feel fulfilled at work. Here, the contribution of women is compared with men in the field of engineering. It is determined that only 13% of working engineers are women. According to various researches, it is revealed that men leave the engineering field at half the rate women do and almost similar pattern exist in other technical field as well. Nadya Fouad, a counseling psychologist, professor and researcher at the University Of Wisconsin-Milwaukee made a conclusion after analyzing census data of last three decades that women had not ever entered and not stayed in the engineering occupation. After that she made a research starting in 2008 to examine the reason that why women tends to choose a quit way rather than trying are succeeding. According to her findings, the reason is Organizational, which means that it is a bullying supervisor, it’s the lack of advancement opportunities, lack of investment in the training programs and employees in an organization. This research clarifies one misunderstanding that the reason of women choosing to quit is not lack of confidence or interest or that they are preoccupied with family needs. Fouad also specify the lack of mentor a one of the reason by which both men and women decide to left. Given all these systematic factors, fouad Highlighted some of the strategies which women can employ to make male dominated or technical fields more hospitable and fulfilling. These strategies includes-

• Self-promote- This means grab more and more opportunities to get more recognized. Women can create network that seek ways that others will provide a system of recognition that they can be a part of .
• Be your authentic self at work- Fouad says that one should have conversation with their colleagues about their favorites’ such as favorite sport. This will enhance the connections and make you feel more at home at work.
• Make other mindful of how recognition gets allocated-Fouad says that one should make a proper choice between the projects allocated, which means that project shall be selected which provides more visibility and recognition.

There is another article which explains positives of Diversity and why diversity is good for business. According to the study conducted by American sociology Association, organizations who are gender diverse are 21 percent more likely to experience above-average probability than their less diverse peers. For the deeper understanding, when we look at the data of ethnic diversity, Two third of teams described as having “medium and high level of racial diversity” reports higher than average probability. Hence it is concluded that ethnic teams are 33percent more likely to be profitable, while the less diverse teams are 29 percent more likely to underperform. Now coming to the answer to question “why diverse workplace are more profitable?” , It is examined that people having similar qualities and having uniform thoughts, identities, culture and background are supposed to think and react in the same way. On the flip side, organization and groups who are diverse in nature and have wider range of experiences and perspectives, think and act in different ways. This will provide more ideas, opportunities to any business. It enables more dynamic thinking, adaptability and creativity.

The matter of diversity is nothing new to talk about, but as more issues such as discrimination, feminism, gender identity etc. come in light, workplace diversity gathers more and more attention. This fact is unavoidable that workplace diversity plays an important role in the success of any business which we can notice in above articles. We can say that our organization’s success and competitiveness somehow depends on the ability to embrace diversity and also realize its benefits. On the other hand, if an organization doesn’t consider workplace diversity in their business, then the situation may cost high to that business. There are certain risk involved in a situation where business doesn’t attempt to improve workplace diversity, mainly gender workplace diversity, which means that there are some opportunities presented when the diversity situation is properly handled. Risks can be both from organization perspective and also from individual’s perspective. Hence based on above analysis, following are some identified risks as well as opportunities accompanied with gender workplace diversity.

From the perspective of organization

In case of business that are operating on a large scale i.e. geographically, require understanding the culture and needs of customers of all the areas and regions. Diversity plays a major role in this situation. When an organization do not have diverse culture then it will fail in serving customers and even expand their business in the areas of which they have no knowledge about the needs and preferences of that nation or culture. At present, women are giving tough competition to men in all respects. Women also have strong managerial skills and ideas which can improve the productivity as well as profitability of business. Hence those organizations who are lacking gender workplace diversity and believe that men are more capable than women, are tends to occur an opportunity cost of the skills and capabilities of women that would have be hired.

It is true that diverse organizations are more complicated and certain problems occur in diverse workplace. These problems can be Communication Problems, Protests, opposition of change etc. But these are the situations which can happen in any type of organization. In front of this, the advantages of diverse workforce are more attractive and productive.

From the point of individual

The impact of being rejected or not selected on the basis of some discriminating factors can be worst sometimes. When male dominated organizations does not provide opportunity to women, then motivation level and confidence both of women shatters. Basically this situation accompanies mental stress and disorders. It is really bad when women skills and capabilities remains unutilized just because there is gender inequality perception presented in business world. If equal opportunities are provided to all genders, then unutilized skills come in knowledge and they get a chance to be utilized to increase the productivity and revenue.

This diversity concept has a social, economic and political impact as well. Diversity has a detrimental effect in countries with a climate of poverty, economic inequality, corruption, political instability and a weak rule of law. It is known that in diverse environment, organizations have more opportunities to expand business globally. This in return strengthens the relations between two nations and this will automatically lead to economic and political benefit. It is a fact that if workplace diversity receives more attention, then our nation and even the whole world will step up to the achievement of growth objective.

Following are some solutions that must be considered in resolving the issue of workplace diversity.

Firstly, in any organization, In an Human resource department, there should be a separate team whose responsibility would be to take steps for the improvement to workplace diversity, discrimination, inequality etc. This team will be responsible to form certain policies and rules to control all the mentioned issues. For example, they should set a target of compulsion on recruitment of women in every recruitment process. This will enhance the involvement of women in business practices. Hence, as more and more organizations decide to form such teams, more and more job opportunities for sustainable professionals would come in light.

Secondly, if within an organization, someone faces any problem, harassment, or discrimination, then there should be a separate department who would solely be responsible to handle all these issues. It is a kind of complaint department, where anyone can go and discuss these issues. Actions should be taken by this department if any matter would come in light. This will also attract job opportunities for sustainable professionals.

Thirdly, there should be diversity awareness team, which would be responsible to aware all people within the organizations about the benefits of workplace diversity. Separate sessions can be conducted to educate people that how to deal with people of different culture, believes, religion etc., so that even in diverse environment, cooperation, coordination or efficiency would not get affected. Hence, sustainability professionals

Lastly and most importantly, it is the responsibility of our nation to form such policies and regulate some laws in which organizations become bound to concentrate of gender workplace diversity. For this, government should provide job opportunities to sustainable professionals to work for them and contribute in growth of nation by elimination diversity issues.

If we consider tech sector, women identifying as black or Asian or Latina represented 35 percent of the total US female population in 2015 and this number is expected or projected to rise to 50 percent by 2060. Percentage of women holding tech jobs of the executive level as well as managerial level is quite low. In this article, a comparison is made with China where women enjoy much greater representation in tech field, even and mainly at leadership level.United States is left behind by other countries in terms of diversity in Tech.

It is sad that even knowing the benefits of diversity, organizations are lacking diversity in their workplace. If companies expand the awareness of diversity, then it may be fruitful for them in various ways.