Breaking the Glass
Ceiling Through Diversity Practices within Organizations
By:
Penny R. Lackey
Dr. Markowitz; Soc
338
May 1, 2003
Assignment #4
Breaking the Glass
Ceiling Through Diversity Practices within Organizations
A
“glass ceiling” has existed in organizations in the past and is a part
of the present corporate structure.This
not only describes something that happens in organizations, but also specifically
states that the problems women encounter in moving up the career ladder
versus men increases at each level in the organization.This
invisible ceiling, acts as a barrier that stops women and minorities from
advancing to top line management positions.The
glass ceiling will continue to prevail in the future, unless steps are
taken today to shatter it.To overcome
this barrier, women and minorities need to acknowledge and become aware
of potential origins and causes before they can move through the “glass
ceiling”.Once understanding the
problem, then one can come up with solutions to overcome this barrier both
individually and within organizations.As
Morrison (1992) reports, “Despite the increase of women in the workforce
and in management overall, Fortune magazine’s 1990 survey of 799 companies
turned up only 19 women among the 4,012 directors and highest-paid executives”
(p.15-19).
The
problem of the “glass ceiling” is prevalent across minorities including
women.According to Eyring &
Stead, (1998), “Of the 1000 biggest U.S. companies, women represent only
16.9 percent of more than 31,000 managers” (p. 245).It
is a problem for workers because of many different reasons.One,
it doesn’t allow for the same opportunities to reach higher management,
despite almost identical formal education and similar work experience as
other groups, particularly white males.Also,
this can lead to women and minorities being trapped within a stereotypical
role, or tokenism, where there is little chance for promotions. Morrison
(1992) reports, “Black women, for example, comprise only 2 percent of managers
in companies with 100 or more employees compared with 23 percent white
women, according to a 1990 Wall Street Journal Article” (p. 15-19).
The
“glass ceiling” can consist of various barriers, from cultural to social
practices.The barrier to stand out
the most would be prejudice, or an opinion, usually unfavorable based on
insufficient knowledge, irrational feelings, or stereotypes.As
noted by Van Vianen & Fishcer (2002), “Indeed, there is considerable
empirical evidence that exclusion mechanisms such as gender schemes, gender
stereotypes, or prejudiced attitudes all play an important role and influence
judgments and evaluations of women unfavorably” (p. 316).Career
planning for the long term that isn’t well thought out, can lead to losing
possible opportunities for the needed experience of top executives.Due
to tokenism, meaning a small proportion of one social group among another
social group makes women and minorities feel pressure to perform because
of being isolated and in the limelight of organizations or professions.Also,
knowing how to get ahead in corporations is not always common knowledge
by everyone employed within a particular organization.Without
having the necessary networks or mentors in place, the chances of knowing
how to get ahead and moving to the top are next to nothing.
In
addition, women and minorities could also be viewed as creating their own
barriers, by lack of qualifications, such as hands on business skills,
decision making capabilities, and knowing how certain operations run.Further,
it is a well known fact that people tend to gravitate towards the similar-to-me
bias.This makes for a safe zone
for people, when similar characteristics are shared among one another and
outsiders are viewed as being different.A
barrier that is assumed to be a woman’s role is the raising of children.It
is sometimes hard to balance both work and family, the responsibilities
can be overwhelming, but it can be done.Women
are looked upon as the caregivers of their children, caring for them daily
and taking them to the doctor when they are sick.This
is often seen as a limit to the job performance of many women, and looked
down on as taking time away from work.Usually,
managers that are female are more likely to be single without children,
similar to their male counterparts.
Moreover,
certain characteristics that organizations and society view that managers
should possess are often seen as masculine. There is a perception that
women aren’t equipped to handle areas of management, that deal with mergers,
acquisitions, firing people, and opening new markets nationally or internationally.The
lack of required experience leads women to take the wrong approaches to
their jobs.As Still (1992) reports,
“Women executives adopted a more individualistic approach to their work-
-valuing talent, planning, foresight and risk-taking, all self-oriented
characteristics.On the other hand,
male executives valued leadership abilities and interpersonal skills, indicating
that they were more oriented towards working with others” (p. 3).Also,
women are seen as lacking leadership skills, direction, and don’t have
the necessary skills to motivate people to aspire to do more in their job
performance.Among leadership skills
women also tend to lack the ability to delegate tasks, which can give them
a poor reputation as a manager.
Consequently,
social policy is important for solving the problem of the “glass ceiling”.More
women and minorities enter the workforce each year, increasing diversity
within the labor market.Younger
women, future managers are now entering areas which used to be male dominated.Social
policy is also important in terms of bringing diversity to an organization.This
helps ensure all customers’ needs are met, and products and services are
aimed towards satisfying those customers’.
Climbing
the corporate ladder would be easier if some of the following ideas were
incorporated into a social policy: women were taught how to get credit
for their talent and ideas, encouragement to seek managerial positions
was given, networking seminars and mentoring programs were made available,
and for those raising children were offered flex time and given more personal
days to take off yearly.
Also,
if organizations would change their rules and do away with some traditional
practices, for example, word-of-mouth hiring practices, then
women and minorities would be able to move forward and do away with the
practice of the “glass ceiling”.Organizations
could allow for some added structuring for employees into a social policy,
it could be taken a step further and incorporating on-site childcare for
working mothers and fathers. Social policy would enable larger numbers
of women and minorities to climb the corporate ladder. Within
the corporate structure, there would be more opportunities to be promoted
and additional advantages for top executive positions, thus the idea of
tokenism would diminish, as so would the “glass ceiling” effect. A social
policy could also create changes necessary to overcome gender type screening
processes, allowing a diverse pool of applicants for top executive jobs.Similarly,
if women and minorities know an organization to be pro-female and have
a diverse work ethic, this may aid them to take positions in or among organizations
with whom they have the best chance in reaching top line management.
In
the early nineties, two trends were occurring, that had a positive impact
on women and minorities progress in breaking through the glass ceiling
and impacting the future structure of organizations.As
Morrison (1992) noted, “One is enforcement of the federal government’s
new legislation and “glass ceiling Initiative”.The
other is employers’ growing acceptance of their role as partners in removing
advancement barriers for women and other non-traditional managers” (p.
15-19).
In
creating a policy that deals specifically with the “glass ceiling”, many
approaches could be incorporated into practice, thus alleviating one barrier
at a time, for the potential of eliminating the problem.One
way would be within the organization, to use diversity practices.In
a study by Morrison (1992), they discovered many diversity practices being
used in organizations.There were
a total of 52 diversity practices, within 16 organizations.Some
practices were more prevalent among organizations than others.The
one that was used in all 16 organizations was an intervention program by
management where they personally helped their employees do things to bring
diversity to the organization.This
Included setting aside traditional forms of recruitment such as word of
mouth.As well as making demands
that minorities and women were to be included as candidates for positions
that were opening (Morrison, 1992).Awareness
and accountability for diversity is the main objective to be carried out
(Morrison, 1992).The other practices
used in diversity practices, such as accountability practices, include
establishing employee advocacy groups that consists of either women or
minorities (Morrison, 1992).Tenneco
Inc. created all women advisory councils and encourages networking (Eyring
and Stead, 1998).This group meets
with top management to go over policies that directly deal with women or
minorities (Morrison, 1992).
Also,
equal employment opportunity (EEO) stats and personnel profiles for making
business and employment decisions are used (Morrison, 1992).When
managers do performance appraisals, they include goals for diversity within
the criteria to be met and goals for incentives (Morrison, 1992).
Another
form of diversity practice would be the use of development techniques.Of
which there are two such goals to focus on.One
is to educate and train employees on diversity and make them aware of problems
associated with both diversity and prejudice (Morrison, 1992).
The
other is to train and make women and minorities better prepared to enter
management positions.This usually
occurs through the use of programs, networking and mentoring (Morrison,
1992).Corning Corporation CEO’s
and top executives attend a training program specifically on gender.Then
a follow-up program is maintained for three years helping managers to apply
the training to their daily lives (Eyring and Stead, 1998).Specific
uses in their daily lives would be for example, teams for improvement qualities
such as, mentoring programs and career planning (Eyring and Stead, 1998).
For diversity programs to be successful, they need to be chosen by the
people, including women and minorities.This
would be the most effective way to keep the good programs and ideas, and
weed out the bad.Dupont Co. uses
a rotation process, so women and men can go through at least two or three
different functions before reaching top line management (Eyring and Stead,
1998).Other suggestions in creating
a social policy would be offering on-site childcare for employees, flex
time where employees could choose their start time, more personal days
off, and offer training programs on various types of work related problems.A
company could also track their female employees’ progress or development,
and take charge of their advancement opportunities.Also,
women and minorities could be placed in roles responsible for profit and
loss.
If
employees are allowed to have a say in decision making, step up and attend
some training seminars, and apply what they have learned about diversity,
prejudice, and the glass ceiling in their daily lives, then we may get
closer to shattering that “glass ceiling”.
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