Discussion
Discuss about the Sexual Inequality for Human Resource Management.
Sexual inequality is one of the major factors that facilitate national backwardness. South Africa is such a region that is known to be poor and socio-economically disadvantaged region. The highest level of sexual, economical and social inequality has made this continent the most deprived region of the world. Before 21st century South-African women were highly marginalised in terms of various kind of social and economical power in comparison with their male counterparts. Due to these reason women of south Africa were known as the unpaid solution of family management, home management etc (Hills, 2015, p.153).
However as a consequence of globalisation South African Government took action against such unfair and meaningless social and cultural practices. In 1996 the provision of ‘non-sexism’ were introduced via constitution of Republic of South Africa. The statement “…Improve the quality of life of all citizens and free the potential of each person…” that is included in the constitution of Republic of South Africa have been changed the gender biasness view of entire nation. This entire easy will focus on the advancement of Gender Equality and betterment of women right in the context of public sector workplace focusing on the South African Human resource management policies and practices development (Republic of South Africa, 1996, p.378).
In order to provide a better understanding of the impact of human resource management on freeing up the potential of women in the context of professional life at public sector of South Africa both the current condition of both gender equality and public sector has been discuses and analysed throughout this essay.
The national public service quality of a nation depends on the efficacy of their Human Resource Management (HRM). While it comes to the public sector HRM seems to be the most challenging factors and the challenge become more critical for South African public sector when it focus on gender equality (Andrews, 1988). This is because since the initiation South African women community have remain deprived from professional career but according to the Constitution of Republic of Africa each and every organisation has to maintain gender equality, violation of which can cause serious legal issue for the organisation. As public sector is known to be the most challenging place to work hence it sector is ideal to reveal self-capability to the highest extent. Entering in this sector can provide an opportunity to African women to identify and apply their level of capabilities and productivity (Marchington et al. 2016, pp. 35-40).
Challenges Faced by South African Women in Entering the Public Sector
While enterin Republic g in the public sector profession the key challenges those are faced by South African women includes gender relations, violence, employment and economic empowerment deficit, comparatively less scope of professional mobility etc. The South African social culture has created the picture of women in such a ways that lower the employability skills of an women in the public sector. In case of South Africa HIV and AIDS has become the major problem since last two centuries and due to higher degree of power imbalance these diseases make women less acceptable in public sector workplace (Mutahaba, 2016, pp. 266-270). The social structure of South Africa allow their women community to access only the borderline scopes of career and profession and such kind of inequality is denser in case of poor families because in such cases women and girls get lower priority for educational opportunity that limits their opportunity to enter into public sector professions.
The Rights of Equality under the constitution of Republic of South Africa have changed the above mentioned situation a lot. Any kind of gender based discrimination has been strictly prohibited in section 8. Section 13 also contains Act that ensure the women empowerment improvement in public sector workplace and such kind of Act includes ‘Equality and prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 2000, ‘Employment Equity Act, 1998 ’ and these act are the key basis of Public Human Resource management’s legislative framework (Public Service Regulations , 2001). Implementation of such kind of laws and regulations has provided better scope to the South African Women to step in and grow their carrier in the public sector (Van Der Westhuizen, 2016).
In case public sector the biggest challenge that has to be faced by women is the instable work-life balance (George et al. 2016, pp.266-270). Public sector is such a sector that seeks maximum level of professional dedication and such organisation always consisted of an intention to pressurise their employee in order to fulfil time bound target for achievement of maximum possible profit. Public Human resource policies of South Africa have provided a good scope for work life balance for women employees. According to the section Chapter 3, section 25 and 24 of constitution of Republic of South Africa due to pregnancy a women can avail minimum of eight weeks of paid leave within an interval of every three years (Lazaroiu, 2015, p.14). The law related to the maternity leave ensure that all employment benefits of expecting women will be continued during this period of leave. Not only that in these context men can also avail maximum of five working days paternity leave, such kind of legislative indirectly proves helpful for women (Foot & Hook, 2003). The most important factor that encourage the potential of women in the public sector workplace of South Africa is that section 27 of chapter 3 of Constitution of Africa forces the human resource management to provide maximum of three days paid leave to their employees in case of any kind of family crisis, although such kind of leave are applicable for both men and women but it can’t be denied that these provide greater benefit to female employees as they own greater family liability by default (Republic of South Africa, 1996, p.378). As most of the South African women, mainly women from poor family were prohibited to work in public sectors because of the fact that inflexible work-life balance might hamper their family liability maintenance actions hence introduction of such regulation that make the work-life balance flexible have provided better scope to women to make career their in public sector (Carley & Christie, 2017,p.222).
The Role of Legislation in Promoting Gender Equality
The Human Resource Management practices of South Africa have successfully applied the ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs theory’ (Bratton & Gold, pp. 260-264). This theory focuses on the basic needs of human beings must be fulfilled by an organisation in order to motivate and retain their employees. Theses need includes needs of self-actualisation that means career growth, needs of self-esteem, need of social identity and inclusion, security and safety needs, and needs of good health and food (Guidelines on Integrated Human Resource Planning in the Public Service, 2002). Not only is case of workplace, these needs are the basic requirement of each and every human being irrespective of their gender but in till the introduction of constitution of Republic of South Africa women were almost deprived of such basic needs (AFRIKA, 2017,p.19). Hence it can be said that besides freeing the power of women in the workplace of public sector the equality encouraging Human resource management practices of South Africa have ensured the fulfilment of basic life needs of the women of the country (George et al. 2016, pp. 377-393).
Conclusion
In conclusion it can be stated that although South Africa is still considered as the most backwards country from the perspective of social, cultural as well as economical background but introduction of gender equity focused national constitution have raised the democracy effectiveness of south Africa and it is obvious that if all the gender equality based practises are adopted by the Human resource of various sectors with full potential then South Africa might be enlisted under the emerging country’s list (Barak, 2016, p 15). The discussion part of this easy have made the fact clear that inclusion of gender equity act in the constitution of Republic of Africa is the key navigator of South African Women’s life and career scope enhancement. A successful application of Maslow’s hierarchy needs theory has made the Public Human resources management of South Africa more beneficial from the perspective of their women employee community as well as entire South African women community.
References:
AFRIKA, R. V. S. (2017). Government Gazette Staatskoerant. Energy, (41237), 19.
Barak, M. E. M. (2016). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage Publications, 15.
Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2017). Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave,260-264.
Carley, M., & Christie, I. (2017). Managing sustainable development. Routledge, 222.
George, G., Corbishley, C., Khayesi, J. N., Haas, M. R., & Tihanyi, L. (2016). Bringing Africa in: Promising directions for management research. Academy of Management Journal, 59(2), 377-393.
Hills, J. (2015). Addressing gender quotas in South Africa: Women empowerment and gender equality legislation. Deakin L. Rev., 20, 153.
Lazaroiu, G. (2015). Employee motivation and job performance. Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations, 14, 97.
Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., Donnelly, R., & Kynighou, A. (2016). Human resource management at work. Kogan Page Publishers, 35-40.
Mutahaba, G. (2016). Human Resource Management in African Public Sector: Current State and Future Direction, 266-270
Republic of South Africa. (1996). Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996. Government Gazette, 378.
Andrews, Y. (1988). The personnel function. Pretoria: Haum.
Foot, M. & Hook, C. (2003). Introducing human resource management. 3 rd Edition. Pearson Eduction.
Guidelines on Integrated Human Resource Planning in the Public Service. December (2002). Pretoria: Department of Public Service and Administration. Available at: www.dpsa.gov.za.
Public Service Regulations of (2001). (promulgated under Section 41 of the Public Service Act 103 of 1994). Available at: www.unisa.ac.za/dept/pad.
Van Der Westhuizen, EJ. (2016).. Human resource management in government: a South African perspective on theories, politics and processes. Juta: Cape Town.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
