Gender Discrimination in Workplaces - Essay Example

Gender discrimination in workplaces is an issue that has been affecting many organizations over the past years with little progress on how to control the problem. There have been numerous researches conducted with the purpose of solving the issue, and most of these researches have proposed particularly recommendable solution. From the research and the information gathered, the most effective approach towards this problem is by associating a solution with a major cause of Gender discrimination in workplaces. From the previously conducted research, there has been a number of realized causes of gender discrimination as well as the measures to take to avoid these incidences. In this paper, we will associate the causes of gender discrimination with the most appropriate solution to avoid the issue.

Gender discrimination cases within the workplaces have been organizational downfall. There have been a number of negative impacts associated with Gender discrimination in workplaces which includes; affecting the organizations performance. This happens in a number of stages. This starts at the recruitment point, instances where employees are employed based on genders. There are chances of picking the less qualified candidates due to there gender. This means that the perfect match for the position fails to be selected, in return the productivity of the chosen Candidate cannot be compared if the right candidate who was to be selected (Heilman). This directly affects the organizations productivity since the team is made up of less qualified team members. Gender discrimination has also affected interpersonal communication within the organization due to the lack of equal treatment within the organization. This mainly happens to the female gender in the organization. In this case the women within the organization feel less appreciated hence their interpersonal communication with the other colleagues at work happens to be affected. They end up feeling less appreciated or accepted within the organization (Basford). In cases of such occurrences the company faces major challenges in the communication channels within itself. Before focusing on the causes and how each particular cause can be controlled it was important addressing a few major impacts associated to gender discrimination as seen above

The major cause responsible for gender discrimination has been based on the leadership of the organization. This has been seen to be the major problem in most companies. The leaders are responsible for the actions of those below them. Leaders are responsible for the formation of different policies within the organization which affect the relationships within the organization. For instance, promotions within the organizations are managerial roles and the minute gender discrimination is exercised in such processes, the entire company knows the stand of their leaders towards gender discriminations and this affects their behaviors towards each other. A good illustration is on promotion bases (Basford). Gender discrimination has been witnessed where the women in different organizations are not in positions of getting promoted despite their efforts. In such cases the organization management which is made up of the organization leaders shows that the organization feels the female gender within the organization is not competent enough to lead. With this notion in play, the other organization workers get the same notion and this cultivates an environment where the women are seen of lesser value in the organization. This creates a gender discriminative environment within the organization.

This issue can be addressed by good leadership within the organization. Good leadership starts with the selection of effective leaders who display leadership characters. With this being considered, it ensures that the organization leaders are responsible for the different decisions they make such as promotion decisions within the organization. Good leadership affects the other bodies beneath them which means the different cases such as gender discrimination are not witnessed within the organization. In the previously seen case, when management made up of leaders with the right leadership qualities are in charge of the organization, functions such as promotions ae not based on gender but the qualification of a worker (Newman). The minute this happens in an organization the staff and the entire working force in the organization respects the value attached to the female gender and respects them accordingly, and this helps control the issues of Gender discrimination in workplaces.

Human resource policies have also been seen to be the main causes of Gender discrimination in workplaces. The human resource sector of the organization is the arm of the organization that is responsible for ensuring that all the workers in an organization related with each other, salary issue, employment issues and other issues related to the welfare of the employees. With this in mind, the human resource sector is responsible for most of the policies within the organization that is directly associated with the employees. In different organizations, some policies laid down by the employees in relation to salary payment for instance based on gender acts as the major cause of discrimination within the organization Heilman. Employees within the same job positions are paid differently based on their gender which happens to be a policy laid down by the Human Resource of the organization. Such a policy is seen in any organization, and this directly impacts the organization's Gender discrimination cases. This happens mainly to the female gender where they happen to be paid fewer salaries as compared to the male gender while performing the same task.

This is a major cause of gender discrimination in the workplace and has a control which means the monitoring of the policies formulated by the human resource department of the organization by the management. This audit on the department ensures that the policies made by the department are by no chance discriminative based on any gender. Despite the gender of the employees as long as they deliver the same amount of energy then their human resource has a duty to ensure they are all compensated equally as well as paid equally. This helps fight the gender injustice in relation to the salary matter concerned (Heilman). If such a step is taken in most of the organizations the employees will feel equally treated by the human resource sector and this will motivate them to perform much better and effectively disregarding the issue of gender which is currently not the issue since most of the organizations the female gender feels they are not well compensated as their male counterparts. This control measure cubs the issues from its source by making both genders within the organization feel equally needed by the organization as well as valued equally by the organization.

Organizational cultures have been seen to be another major cause of Gender discrimination in workplaces. As seen organizational cultures can be defined as the values and behaviors that make up an organizations unique social and psychological environment. Every organization has its own laid down organization structure which helps it get identified from the other organizations. These organizational cultures affect the different ideologies in different organizations which tend to base the structure of the organization in gender bases, for instance, different departments end up being associated with the female gender while other departments end up getting associated with the male gender. This has been seen in most cases where the human resource as well as the customer care department as associated with the female gender and referred to as the less complicated sectors within the organization. This has had a major impact on the issue of gender discrimination (Carle). The female gender within the organization is seen to perform the less complicated operations within the organization while the male gender is seen to handle the hard sector of the organization. This notion is based on the organizational culture and has greatly affected many organizations (Carle). But this has been instilled in our minds due to the different organizational culture and directly

This issue has its control that can help control gender discrimination at workplaces. Organizational cultures need to be restructured as the changes in the world occur. Within some old organizations, the cultures have not evolved as things have been evolving, things such a gender equality where the woman is in a position of delivering the same as a man. Nursing, for instance, the notion that has been on the mind of many is that the profession was more suitable for the female gender but over time this has been changing. This shows an embrace to change within the organizational culture in the health sector. Organizations should adapt to change and accept new cultures which positively (Herrbach, Olivier, and Karim). There are different cultures that are up for change due to different changes such as education where the girl hold is able to access the same level of education and can deliver the same as the man hence the organizational cultures need to be in a position of embracing these changes. This will help reduce the number of gender discrimination cases within the organization.

From the gathered information it is possible to claim that gender discrimination within the workplace is evident and the main causes of these cases wholly originate in within the organization, this means the main possible solutions for these problems are all in within the organization. From the study covered we managed to gather information concerning the major causes of Gender discrimination in workplaces followed by the possible solution and in this final paper, we have managed to directly link a cause to its possible control by the organization. The main issue worth addressing is the fact that these problems are present in most organization despite all the efforts in achieving gender equality within the workplace. But for all this to be successful every member within the organization has their role to play and ensure gender equality within the organization, the management team and all the other teams within the organization, since all these departments within the organization need to marge and work as a single team so as to achieve the goals of the organization.

Work Cited

Basford, Tessa E., Lynn R. Offermann, and Tara S. Behrend. "Do you see what I see? Perceptions of gender microaggressions in the workplace." Psychology of Women Quarterly 38.3 (2014): 340-349.

Carle, Susan. "Employment discrimination." (2012).

Heilman, Madeline E. "Gender stereotypes and workplace bias." Research in Organizational Behavior 32 (2012): 113-135.

Herrbach, Olivier, and Karim Mignonac. "Perceived gender discrimination and womens subjective career success: The moderating role of career anchors." Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations 67.1 (2012): 25-50.

Dipboye, Robert L., and Adrienne Colella, eds. Discrimination at work: The psychological and organizational bases. Psychology Press, 2013.

Newman, Constance. "Time to address gender discrimination and inequality in the health workforce." Human resources for health 12.1 (2014): 25.