Critical Thinking
Critical Thinking & Self Evaluation
This paper explores how gender discrimination affects employee performance in the workplace. The study also highlights all the issues a male employee faces in the workplace; and discusses how an employee overcomes confronted gender-based issues. The interview analysis paper also highlights the perception of interviewee regarding career advancements and gender stereotyping.
Personal Information:
The questionnaire starts with collecting interviewee personal information. The name and other private information cannot be revealed to maintain confidentiality. The interviewee age is around mid-30s. He belongs to India but works in an American Company based in the USA.
Views and Challenges Faced in the Workplace:
Workplace issues are mostly researched with women’ perspective; few studies have been conducted on the challenges faced by male employees at their respective organizations. To gain insights of the problems which male employees often face. Interview method is one of the most effective ways of gaining in-depth information, for that reason, an interview method is used in this study. The interviewee reveals that women mostly take an edge over male staffs regarding job rotation and job enlargement. It has been observed that female workers are more often promoted than males. The female staffs enjoy more attractive remunerations than males and get an advantage in shifts and overtime. Many organizations today are considering hiring female staffs over males as they assume that business sales can be augmented when clients interact with the presentable female staffs. The interviewee says the most eminent and serious issue he faces at the workplace is gender inequality. Every organization has its strategic plan and to attain it, gender equality plays an eminent role. However, the interviewee is the victim of gender inequality where women are given more recognition than men are which ultimately demotivates the male staffs. Women due to their fragile appearance are assigned less labor work as compare to men.
According to the interviewee, the working condition for male staffs is not justified, as they are not given proper safe and secure environment. The male staffs are taken for guaranteed in many ways when it comes to tasks distribution, promotions, and compensation. The victim also reveals that gender disparities not just affect employee performance but also evoke negative change in employee’s behavior, which adversely affect organizational well-being. Our society is treating women as a sympathetic creature which is why organizational policies are formulated with the focused on women empowerment and equality. This emphasize somewhat affected opposite gender rights and equality not just in the society but at workplace too. Organizations today prefer to hire female staffs on the leadership positions. In the past, male staffs were given preference for all the leadership and higher posts. It is evident that women leadership outperforms than male leadership.
Interviewee depicts that in his organization, the woman is overpaid for the same work, which he does. However, due to management’s gender bias decision, males are not given equal compensation rights as compared to females. The interviewee also faced discrimination in his workplace when a female staff went to maternity leaves. Management instead of taking some efficient replacement step, like an outsourcing employee for filling the temporary vacant position, reassigned her work to him. The over assigning of work to the interviewee led to burnout issue and affected his annual appraisal and performance. The issue that confronted by the interviewee was flexible working hours application denial over the female application. The interviewee is a single parent and when he submitted an application to allow him for flexible working hours it was rejected and at the same time, a female single parent application was approved for the same request.
The gender bias decision disturbed his work-life balance, which affected his performance and motivation level. The solution to that is, management must take unbiased decisions because employees are the resources for the organization, and if those resources are not utilized effectively then the company may face a downfall. Interviewee reveals that there are organizations that have bias hiring and selection process which do not prefer married male candidates. This discrimination is because management wants their hired employees to dedicate their most of the hours to the workplace rather than family. Therefore, management prefers to hire employees who have single marital status. The serious discriminatory issue is sexual assault or workplace harassment against male employees. It is the most sensitive issue, which could not be in focused previously. With an increase in the similar issue cases, organizations start taking some action. Men face sexual assault from female bosses or even from other male colleagues. The cases of sexual harassment against men have been increased with every passing year, however; this issue has not taken seriously.
In many firms, a strict action against women sexually harassment has taken, but when it comes to male staffs, then few organizations have taken steps against that. The interviewee revealed that sexual harassment against men was controlled in his workplace due to proper check and balance and policy implementation. However, he discusses this issue because it is one of the most common yet neglected concern. There are three different types of sexual harassment, which a man faces at the workplace. The first one is sexual coercion; the other is unwanted sexual attention and third are gender harassment. The sexual coercion is pertinent job threats, which force the employees to involve in the sexual relationship. The unwanted sexual attention is when a person indirectly tortures another person for instance, touching without consent and showing unwanted gestures. Such acts increase mental distress, and that may result in low performance or sometime high employee turnover rate. The last type of sexual harassment is gender harassment, in this, a person is humiliated and confronted hostile behavior due to his/her gender. Many male staffs due to their physical appearance become the victim of gender harassment, which may result in low self-confidence, as well as, job performance.
Strategies to Overcome Challenges:
Gender disparities against men and women do not benefit the organization. Management fails to recognize deserving employees if gender equality is not practiced within the workplace. To minimize gender disparities within the organization, it is eminent to bring behavioral changes. The task must be divided equally between men and women; working closely with each other would help in reducing the gender gap. Interviewee revealed that the gender inequality/disparity issue is not overcome completely in his workplace but reduced to some extent by working together as allies with opposite gender which ultimately helping in bridging the gender gap. The issue, giving more importance to women on leadership positions over males, is reduced by focusing on gender equality. The emphasize must be put first on the performance irrespective of cast, creed, religion and gender.
If a female individual has, more potential and KSA (Knowledge, skills and abilities) than male then she should be given what she deserves. The problem augments when unnecessary favors and sympathetic behavior are seen towards female staffs. The compensation and benefits must be given to employees based on the performance rather than gender. Organizations need to overcome the temporary employee hiring issues when female staff is on leaves like maternity leaves, by outsourcing employee to fill the temporary position rather than reassigning work to male staff or any other staff member. The recruitment and selection process of an organization plays an eminent role in minimizing the gender bias acts. The more transparent the hiring process is, the fewer employees face gender discrimination.
Sexual harassment in the workplace against men never considers a serious threat towards achieving organization strategic plan. Such harassment creates hindrance towards achieving organization goals because the employees get involved in some unreasonable acts, which might affect other person’s mental as well as physical well-being. A healthy workplace environment is eminent to outperform in the job. To reduce sexual harassment and unwanted incidence, companies need to strictly formulate and implement policy. Any person who feels guilty in such shameful act must be fired from the organization.
Thus, it can be summarized from the above interview analysis that individuals either male or female faces different challenges in the workplace like gender inequality, sexual harassment etc. the HR department needs to overcome all the challenges their employees face and provide them safe and secure workplace that help in achieving maximum employee job satisfaction along with lucrative results (Perry, n.d).
Reference
Perry, G. (n.d.). Gender Discrimination in Employment. Encyclopedia of Gender and Society.
Self-Evaluation
Self-Evaluation: A Female Voice
This is a self-review paper in which I am going to discuss my strengths and areas of improvements. My goal is to identify my strengths and discuss how I build those strengths in me. There are numerous weaknesses in my personality, which I am also going to highlight. I am going to discuss how these weaknesses can be transmuted into my strengthen. Being a female, it is difficult to survive independently in the male dominant society. However, I have developed my strengths, and I am working on ameliorating my weak areas through identifying them first and then overcoming the loopholes. Finishing school is best for that; it helps the young people to excel their skills and groom themselves. Currently, I am studying as well as doing the job in the HR field. I have attended finishing school, which helps in developing my skills, overcoming my weak areas and groom my personality. Finishing school is best for young women who want to groom themselves as it focuses on teaching the upper-class cultural rites and social graces that make easier to enter the professional market.
Finishing school has taught me how to interact with the people. I have developed good interpersonal skills because of attending finishing school. It also helps to develop my soft skills that help me in my professional field. I handled different projects and gave presentations to the local and international stakeholders; I have developed my presentation skills through finishing school. My good communication and interpersonal skills help in strengthen public relations that contribute towards my professional growth. During my finishing school, I have given different professional challenges, and we have to overcome those challenges by taking analytical decision-making. The training programs help me in handling the real life workplace challenges that assist me not just resolving the day-to-day work place challenges but also outperforming the assigned tasks. The training programs help me bridging the gap exist between theoretical studies with practical work experience. Before attending finishing school training programs, I was struggling hard to develop the right attitude required at the workplace for professional growth. The training programs help in developing optimistic attitude; the attitude helps me in taking new initiatives in my job. The optimistic and risk taking attitude actuates me taking initiatives towards improving business processes. The positive attitude towards business process improvements makes me a valuable HR professional in my organization.
An HR professional must interact with the industrial experts to get the lifelong learning opportunity to excel and enhance their KSA (knowledge, skills and abilities). The training programs have provided me a chance to interact with the senior industry level experts. Interaction with the experienced professionals gives me an opportunity to learn new things from them. I interact with the professional and ask their expert advice regarding organizational issues. Finishing school has strengthened my problem-solving skills; I implement the best conflict resolution strategies at my workplace. I possess leadership position at my workplace due to my developed soft skills. I own my organization and job tasks; my responsible nature and committed attitude towards work has created my good reputation at the workplace. I prefer to complete the assigned tasks before its deadline that helps in strengthen management’s trust in me. I have a multitasking ability, which helps me in engaging and managing multiple projects efficiently. My work fulfillment quality has opened new paths towards professional growth and progress.
Being an HR professional, I have to lead and direct teams for that I need to have strong persuasive and negotiation skills. With my strong communication and interpersonal skills, I actuate my team to work in the direction that best meet the strategic objectives of the organization. Employee empowerment is eminent to attain innovative ideas and business improvement strategies from all management levels whether it is low-level management or middle-level management. During my training programs, I have learned that empowering employees can lead to accomplishing competitive edge. To bridge the communication gap, I regularly interact with different departments’ employees and in those meetings their issues, ideas and suggestions are discussed. The one to one meetings help me maintaining a strong relationship with my employees. One of the biggest strengths is work fulfillment; I have the ability to create an environment where people can get a chance to excel their skills. I have strong problem-solving skills, which help me in creating a feasible environment for the employees so that they can work freely. Being an HR professional, I have a strong ability to resolve conflicts among employees. Employees stay for long in an organization only if job advancements and promotions are given to them.
Apart from strengths, I have areas of improvement, which need to be overcome. An employee is more productive if there is a good balance between work and personal life. I feel the biggest weakness, which needs to be overcome, is to find out quality time for my family. I am occupied in my school and workplace that I hardly get a chance to interact with my family members. I do not get a relaxing time to hang out with my friends and family, which somewhere affect my health and personality. Although I am a multitasker to manage things other than workplace is sometimes become difficult for me. I often sit late which affect my studies and family life; not just that, but it will affect my productivity. I believe an employee brings creative ideas in the business only if he/she is enjoying a healthy lifestyle. One of the loopholes of my personality is to create a best-fit balance between healthy lifestyle and work life. At the workplace, although I divide my priorities and work accordingly however I fail to implement this strategy in my personal life. I have more capability and potential to excel my skills and bring creative notions for ameliorating my professional and personal life; however, what lacks in accomplishing that is mental peace. The productivity and energy level drop down when it comes to professional and personal life. I either outperform professionally but fail to create balance in personal life wellbeing. The work-life balance can be achieved if I allocate sufficient time to all my priorities either personally or professionally.
One of the loopholes is that I mostly give preference to my professional life over personal. The neglected personal life leads me nowhere but in distress and high level of depression and dissatisfaction. Although, I am professionally progressing, but mentally I am losing my concentration, motivation, and satisfaction from life. I find no time to engage myself in spiritual meditation. A person leads a peaceful life if he/she spends few minutes in offering prayers. Exercise is eminent to create and maintain a healthy lifestyle. I do not get time to do exercise which makes me lethargic and dizzy. Exercise increases mental peace, which ultimately benefit an individual to ponder creative notions that help in progressing well in the professional and personal life. Recreational activities are also important for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. There are many companies like Google that offers its employees to engage in different recreational activities as it realizes that their employees are well occupied. The best way to improve productivity yet creativity/innovation, it is eminent to add yoga, swimming and exercise as a must do things.
These activities do not just increase the metabolism but also build work capacity, which may lead to personal and professional development. Allocating proper time to each act of my day-to-day activity would help me in overcoming my weaknesses, and this also helps in transmuting my weaknesses into strengths. An individual would not lead to successful life if there were no work-life balance. An individual leads a successful life if there is a work-life balance. Organizations must provide a healthy lifestyle and working environment that assists employees in overcoming their mental distress (Kremer, 1993; Jones, Burke & Ṿesṭman, 2006).
References
Jones, F., Burke, R. J., & Ṿesṭman, M. (2006). Work-life balance: A psychological perspective. Hove: Psychology Press.
Kremer-Hayon, L. (1993). The Content of Self-Evaluation. Teacher Self-Evaluation, 55-77.
