Gender discrimination is one of the oldest form of inequality still in practice today in most parts of the world. In most countries women do not have opportunities and access to education, jobs, politics and other fields as to their male counterparts. So is there gender discrimination in workplace?
Is there existing discrimination? Well yes, if you believe that there are as many competent potential female members as their male counterparts and take account of the current imbalance in numbers. Gender inequality isn't only a problem that impacts politics, but affects the global enterprise too. Research has shown over and over that the greater women managers an employer has, the greater profitable it's far. Economy and society have every interest in tapping all the talent in their midst. So it is very much important to give gender quota in workplace to ensure competency of workforce, untapped talent and effective decision making.
Gender quota do help in workplace by increasing the competency of workforce. In Norway, Government set a 40% quota for women in workplaces, which initially was strongly opposed by the company owners, board of directors and employees. But, according to research by gender economy, this once strongly opposed policy is now widely accepted, both by public and employers. The reason as stated by some of the board members was after the transition period, this increased representation by women actually improved the overall governance and decision making in the company. Research from London School of Economics showed that quotas not only increases the competency of the workforce, thereby making them more efficient, but can also help to weed out mediocrity as well. A global index from Catalyst proved that Fortune 500 companies with more female boardroom representation outperformed those in the lowest quartile. Not only did those at the top see a 16% higher return on sales, they also saw a 26% increase in return on invested capital. In the world of technology women are investing more than men and it is seen that women are far better than men in doing business and startup’s. All across the board it is seen that women have positive impact on bottom line. Evidence clearly, that this sweeping fear of women failing to hit the mark in top roles is unfounded.
Gender quota in workplace helps to tap the hidden talent. According to statics in US it showed that there are more graduate women than men and still they have more hurdles in their way of finding job according to their status of degree. Also one research showed that companies do struggle for finding the best person for their open position, but at the same time there are majority of untapped talent due to stigma of not hiring women because of this gender biasedness and, therefore, gender quota would compel them to look into this way. The Talent, which some are steadfastly blocking from gaining entry to roles. Even from a purely statically standpoint, quotas are beneficial for workplace. And that’s before you consider the social and cultural impact. Globally, women make more consumer purchases than men. We know that a diverse management can benefit a business financially. We know that customers respond to a company that is an accurate reflection of them. We’ve also seen that a diverse workforce can improve company culture for all employees.
Gender quota in workplace also helps to make organization more effective by improving the decision making process. As we know that decision making is important tool for strategy formulation of company by defining its objectives and goals. So it is very much important in those companies whose product are more consumed by females there should be large quota of women which will help in decision making and increase the sales and profitability of the company. This doesn’t merely end on the decision making but also as there would be more gender diversification, there will be novel viewpoints and approaches to different problems, which previously might not have been considered, due to disruption of groupthink.
There is also an argument of merit system, which some say is disturbed by these quotas. In Canada, for board diversification under ‘comply or explain’ policy, some of the companies defend themselves, who do not adopt ‘gender targets’, by saying that they hire based purely on ‘the merit system’. But, these meritocratic systems, as researched by Rotman magazine, are as susceptible to the biases as any other system. Psychology says that a person is susceptible to biasedness and stereotyping depending on the surrounding. So, it is easy to say, while recruiting there is no guarantee that this biasedness would not be present that is so deeply embedded in our workplace culture. Thus, suffice to say, the quotas provide an effective and structured framework to overcome this partiality when there would be little to less room left for this unconscious segregation to emerge.
To conclude we can say that diversity is something for which business or workplace should strive. It is not just something that will make business socially responsible but it will also make some ledgers for it. According to Gallup those business that are more gender diversified are more profitable and make more money. It ought to likewise hold that if assorted variety is useful for singular organizations, it's useful for the economy all in all. The things that drive advancement for one organization ought to have the option to drive development no matter how you look at it. While there is positively nothing that says development can't emerge out of a sex imbalanced board, the numbers don't lie with regards to the improvement brought by an increasingly assorted work environment. Moreover, the quotas are not permanent, it is just a temporary measure focused at creating a harmony and eradicating the gender biasedness in the company, by employing females and showing that company’s performance depends not on the gender but the capability of its individuals. Once this inequality is removed, the quotas can be lifted in accordance with equal treatment principle as explained by international court of human rights.
