Ways in which biases and stereotypes affect women in the workplace
1.Lately there has been a concept of the hidden bias in the organisation in to the forefront with regards to the dynamic culture. The major reasons and the types of the biasness are Conformity Bias, Beauty Bias, Affinity Bias, Halo effect, Attribution effect and a lot more (Williamson, 2008).
Conformity Bias: The conformity bias relates to the biasness caused by the group and the peer pressure. This happens mostly in the case of the women when the voicing of the opinions is less and the individual thought process is such that they lean towards the particular individual due to the majority (Ideal, 2018).
Affinity Bias: Affinity Biasness is also one of the major reasons where the stereotype about the women tends to increase and the women are affected. The similar college or institution or the earlier recognition of an individual is what makes the affinity bias more strong and therefore this situation is also helpful in creation of the biases and stereotypes towards the women in an organisation (Becker and Gerhart, 2016).
Beauty Bias: The beauty no doubt is a physical feature that the beautiful woman tends to be more successful; however this is not the case always. A person’s physical appearance cannot be the deciding factor of the fact that the person is having brain. While recruiting the women, it is common to recruit the person which do possess the physical attributes and who best fits for the position. However, the basic criteria are the qualification and if the person is recruited on the basis of the facial features than it is the complete bias (Reiche, 2016).
Halo effect: the halo effect talks about one certain feature that overlaps the rest of the bad features. For example a woman has attended the college from a reputed and the recognised university such as Harvard or Boston and she gets hired just on the basis of the degree than it is also referred to as one of the bias that is faced by the other women in the organisation.
Confirmation effect: This effect is the most common effect and form of biasness. In the process of the recruitment, a judgement is formed on the basis of some evidence. The subconscious mind tends to think differently in case of other individual. The danger of conformity bias in recruitment is that our own judgement could be very, very wrong and could cause us to lose a great candidate for the job. Therefore women need to face the criticism in the form of judgement (Brewster and Hegewisch, 2017).
Potential impact of ethnic and religious signifiers on job applicants’ CVs
2.Race and class discrimination can always enhance the minority groups to the platform of the lower jobs, unemployment, low quality jobs despite the individual is having the highest quality of experience and workload. The bias on account of the ethnic and the religious signifiers in their CV’s can have a first impression in a solid manner yet at the later stages this can turn the tables for the individual. No doubt the qualification matters but there are some organisation that openly gives preferences to the individuals of a particular class or section. The major effect can be seen when more than two three applicants are giving the interview of the same kind (Bratton and Gold, 2017).
Apart from this the major effects are the judgemental perception of the human resource manager towards the applicant. The people belonging to the different gender and community face difficulties of being judged on the basis of the religion rather in terms of the work experience and qualification. This instils a fear among the applicant and they feel disregarded and demotivated. Even if they get hired they will feel neglected and eventually the performance of the individuals will get hampered and hence it creates a major effect on the resume of the applicant (Avery, 2013).
The ethnic of the religious signifiers also determine the fear in the mind of the tribal people especially because they are from the rural areas and the urban culture and areas are new for them. Moreover, these people are critically evaluated and at times bullied on the basis of the religion and they are not hired just because their father and the forefather belong to a different and lower grade community as categorised by the society (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).
3.The statement is partially true and fits according to the needs of the organisation. The representation of the women, no doubt will be increased and the women will get more power to choose their careers and their goals. Yet the arguments for increasing the diversity in the gender for the board of directors may ensure the opportunities are equal yet the results are often disheartened and mixed. In order to maintain the efficiency the current scenario and research does not justify the quotas on gender. Since every aspect has the pros and cons therefore this aspect also involves certain pros and cons (Smith. 2017).
Pros:
Quotas may increase the number of women on the panel of the board of the directors and overall it is the good option. Secondly the decision making process gets improved once there is a gender diversity as the opinions of the different people can bring new solutions and alternatives to a particular problem (Wiswall and Zafar, 2016).
Effectiveness of gender quotas for increasing women’s representation in senior leadership
The board attendance also increases with the advantage of having the board members as a female. The company has the advantage of being monitored and may have the positive impact on the development of the career at the lower level of the organisation. The presence of the women at the top level management ensures the gender equality on account of the organisation and more job employments will be created for the women in order to enhance the skills and expertise. Women may become good mentors and the role models for the other people (Martins & Parsons, 2007).
This is also helps to boost the morale of the women at the lower level and they tend to work more efficiently to set a path for their success.
Cons:
On the other hand there are certain negative aspects such as boards with the diversified members who are different from the senior management tends to experience certain communication problems both internally as well as externally. The research and the survey ensures that since the qualified women for the position of the senior executive is rarely thin the less experienced women will be hired which will ultimately hamper the value of the company. Despite some of the positive outcomes the women has to fulfil the responsibilities both at the home as well at the office which might become cumbersome for them at the later stages. The major cons starts with the background of the family and if there is no equality among the families the professional areas will get affected automatically (Williamson, et al 2008).
4.The statement is entirely true. The recruiting advertising is an important stage to recruit he people to work for their organisation. This methodology is effective, in attracting the people from the non-peer groups as they will be considered as acknowledged irrespective of their age, religion, colour and region. The images of the diverse culture will eventually attract the people who are aged between the 30 to 40, reasons being the organisations tend to attract the young youth more in comparison to the older people. For example if the organisation hangs the images of the youngsters, it seems to reflect to the applicant that the organisations hire the new talents and give opportunities to the young fellows (Kaas & Manger, 2012). On the contrary if the organisations want to promote all kinds of people despite the age and the culture, the organisation will stick the posters which include the mixed variants. This concept ultimately enhances the diversified community in the organisation and critically states that there is no gender or age bias. What matters is the quality of the work done by any individual. Further, the concept of the inclusion at work is applied in such a case. Due to initiation of the concept of the inclusion at work the people will get equal opportunities and rights for every policy, rules and regulations every individual will be treated with equal respect (Ibarra, Ely & Kolb, 2013).
Impact of diversity initiatives on recruitment advertising
Moreover there are people who fall under the category of the lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. The major recruiting policies can be checked when the organisation recruit the people of the other sex and gender. At time sit becomes difficult for the people to hire the people who are transgender or bisexual and they fell left out and neglected. They also feel disheartened and demotivated in case they do not find any image or the personality which either supports them or is in favour of them or belong to the same category (Church, 2016).
The job applicants get attracted on the basis of three factors. First is the salary and perks what they are going to get for the work allotted to them, second the comforting environment in which they are working and third the culture and the people they are working with. The last variant is most important as the mutual relationship among the employees is what makes and organisation a better one from others and the mixed diversity also encourages the talent form all sections to avoid the personal biasness (Ranehill and Weber, 2017).
References
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., (2014) Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., (2017).Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Brewster, C. and Hegewisch, A. eds., (2017) Policy and practice in European human resource management: The Price Waterhouse Cranfield survey. Taylor & Francis.
Becker, B. and Gerhart, B., (2016) The impact of human resource management on organizational performance: Progress and prospects. Academy of management journal, 39(4), pp.779-801.
Ideal, (2018) Workplace diversity through recruitment [online] Available from https://ideal.com/workplace-diversity/[Accessed on 22nd August 2018]
Smith. N. Gender quotas on board of Directors [online] Available from https://wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/7/pdfs/gender-quotas-on-boards-of-directors.pdf [Accessed on 22nd August 2018]
Reiche, B.S., Stahl, G.K., Mendenhall, M.E. and Oddou, G.R. eds., (2016) Readings and cases in international human resource management. Taylor & Francis.
Avery, D. R. (2013) Reactions to diversity in recruitment advertising–are differences black and white? Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(4), 672-679.
Martins, L. L., & Parsons, C. K. (2007) Effects of gender diversity management on perceptions of organizational attractiveness: The role of individual differences in attitudes and beliefs. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(3), 865-875.
Williamson, I. O., Slay, H. S., Shapiro, D. L., & Shivers-Blackwell, S. L. (2008) The effect of explanations on prospective applicants’ reactions to firm diversity practices. Human Resource Management, 47(2), 311-330
Kaas, L., & Manger, C. (2012) Ethnic discrimination in Germany’s labour market: A field experiment. German Economic Review, 13(1), 1-20.
Ibarra, H., Ely, R., & Kolb, D. (2013) Women rising: The unseen barriers. Harvard Business Review, 91(9), 60-66.
Williamson, I. O., Slay, H. S., Shapiro, D. L., & Shivers-Blackwell, S. L. (2008) The effect of explanations on prospective applicants’ reactions to firm diversity practices. Human Resource Management, 47(2), 311-330.
Church, A., (2016) Preference organisation and peer disputes: How young children resolve conflict. Routledge.
Ranehill, E. and Weber, R., (2017) Do gender preference gaps impact policy outcomes?.
Jieyu, L., 2016. Gender, sexuality and power in Chinese companies: Beauties at work. Springer.
Wiswall, M. and Zafar, B., (2016) Preference for the workplace, human capital, and gender (No. w22173). National Bureau of Economic Research