1.1 Background and Introduction to Key Issues
The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the main themes of the first volume entitled Inequality and Organizational Practice: Work and Welfare. It seeks to outline the key context and concepts explored across the chapters and enable the reader to examine the importance of understanding hidden inequalities in the workplace.
There is a growing pressure for organisations to pay attention to work-related issues including work-life balance with the scope to understand individual needs and promote a more positive organisational culture (Sawyer and Thoroughgood 2018). With dramatic demographic changes in the labour market and additional pressures to enhance organisational competitiveness, organisations have been forced to take positive actions which promote visible and non-visible differences (Boekhorst 2015). Evidence suggests that addressing equality and diversity issues encourages the establishment of positive employment relationship in less predictable work roles and working life (Rattan 2018; Van Dijk et al. 2012) and ability to translate diversity policies into improved performance (Sawyer and Thoroughgood 2018). This includes changes in work design, workforce profile, flexibility, recruitment, promotional practices and competencies development. The business environment requires leaders to champion diversity and move away from narrow outcomes such as financial returns and business outcomes (Chartered Institute for Personnel and DevelopmentâCIPD 2017, 2018).
Despite some positive progress, there are still âgreyâ areas that are not specifically covered by the current legal framework which may not be specifically legislated for, but when used to identify an individual as âotherâ could serve as an exclusionary mechanism and impact upon that individualâs dignity and well-being. This shows the need to constantly produce knowledge that would enable business leaders and professionals to understand current issues and most importantly to help them take positive actions towards developing working conditions free from discriminatory behaviours. Ensuring everyone is treated equally with dignity is simply âthe right thing to do. People matter, and we all should have equal opportunity to develop, progress, and be rewarded and recognised at workâ (CIPD 2018, p. 2). However, this oversimplistic but important statement demonstrates the need to make significant changes on how we manage and treat individuals in modern organisations. For example, the gender pay gap undermines gender equality and provides a scope to generate hidden discriminatory practices. Traditionally, the gender pay gap and issue of gendered jobs have been explained as a result of women choosing to restrict their involvement in the labour market (Hakim 2000) or as a result of horizontal and vertical job segregation. Interventions to alleviate the gender pay gap, including better labour market attributes of women, training, job flexibility and continuous work experience, have been offered by many organisations (Tharenou 2012); however, the gender pay gap remains a pervasive and insidious issue across many countries. In the UK alone, the gender pay gap for full-time workers is entirely in favour of men as women earn 20.8% less compared to male individuals in most sectors (Office for National Statistics 2018). Literature highlights that there is a lack of awareness of the pay gap, and how organisations can address the issues emerged from gender pay imbalance (Tharenou 2012).
As educators, we felt the need to have some contribution in this area and provide insightful findings to support changes on how hidden inequality is addressed. After we published our first textbook,1 we received a high number of messages from the academic and professional community. This was a positive outcome given that the book challenges traditional ways of understanding diversity in the workplace. Comments highlighted the need to make radical changes on diversity and equality by producing relevant knowledge (both at individual and organisational level) and undertake an appropriate assessment of the wider business practices in diversity. We noted that individuals were keen to discuss their concerns around hidden inequality due to high level of âfrustrationâ as to how organisations address work and welfare issues. We have to admit the realisation that individuals shared similar concerns around the way organisational practices create hidden inequalities boosted our confidence to carry on our work and produce this new volume. What it is more positive is the fact that many individuals were supportive of the idea to produce more knowledge around this topical issue. Our first book shows that theory and practice could generate positive outcome by enabling individuals to challenge current thinking and raise awareness (Caven and Nachmias 2018). In fact, individual awareness is an important first step in enabling change to happen at both an individual and an organisational level, with Celik et al. (2012) suggesting that the establishment of awareness is followed by acceptance, adoption and adherence. Management of hidden inequalities should be seen as a necessity, where individuals should be involved in a process of examining the operational and behavioural realities leading to durable and relevant diversity work-based solutions (Caven and Nachmias 2018). Therefore, we have to move away from the âforce-feedingâ attitude towards satisfying legal expectations, enabling individuals to have a key part in tackling inequality, encouraging diversity and creating an inclusive workplace culture (CIPD 2018).
1.2 Aims and Objectives
Evaluating diversity and equality issues is a complex web with threats that relate to personal cognitive maps of the knowledge producers. The scope of this volume is to advance our current understanding in a number of areas that generate hidden inequalities:
- Academic evaluation of the current legal framework and the wider implication to gender and welfare equality.
- Social justice and stigma issues that might create material, affective or psychological divisions amongst individuals and groups locally, nationally and internationally.
- Nuanced issues (non-declared and declared medical or physical conditions) that individuals face within the key protected characteristics including age, disability, gender and reassignment, race, religion and belief, sex and sexual orientation, marriage, civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity.
The current paradigm has generally assumed that organisations should comply with the formal legislative framework through the adoption of sameness practices which reflect a moral concern for social justice. Hidden inequality is an emerging area as several workforce changes have created a number of challenges (i.e. bias, stress, well-being, talent management) that organisations need to address at operational and strategic level. For example, the way organisations offer flexible working practices creates a number of structural and cultural barriers keeping inequalities in the workplace. The Taylor Review commissioned by the British government illustrates the need for organisations to review completely flexible working practices with the scope to promote organisational inclusion and address generational changes (Taylor et al. 2017). Further to that, BAME2 employees have to deal with a number of cultural barriers, social stigma and organisational bias influencing their experience at work and preventing them from utilising fully their careers (CIPD 2018; McGregor-Smith 2017).
However, there are areas of the legal framework that are not covered which creates a complex challenge for organisations to reduce effects of social exclusion and discrimination and achieve greater inclusion which promotes visible and non-visible differences. This supports our scope to explore and understand how dominant discourses within the literature exert an institutional power on the rhetoric and practice of diversity, related to the multifaceted social, behavioural and cultural constructs in the workplace (Caven and Nachmias 2018). Evidence suggests that diversity programmes fail to produce meaningful diversity and inclusion, with some activities generating further bias and exclusion issues in the workplace (Pruitt et al. 2018). Organisations should take some responsibility for the lack of progress in promoting diversity and equality; nevertheless we need to recognise that organisations face an unprecedented number of challenges around talent management, socio-economic policy and globalisation. Our goal is not to get involved in a blame game and point out any specific individuals or stakeholders responsible for the current issues. Organisations need to meet their legal duties. Nonetheless, we believe that providing greater awareness of the current issues is likely to underline the success of any organisation/individual initiatives around work and welfare. Without appropriate action, there is always the risk of maintaining cultural/behavioural attitudes that keep inequality and influence an organisationâs ability to change employment relationships. Organisations and their business leaders act as a catalyst in driving progress, which is not limited to specialist understanding of diversity issues but extends to the development of sufficient knowledge and expertise in changing individual attitude.
Perspective Analysis by Amairisa Kouki, Nottingham Trent University, UK
Over the past few decades, despite affirmative and legislative action, womenâs higher educational attainment, vocational qualifications and increasing labour force participation, the gender pay gap persists. Recently published reports show that countries that have embraced transparency have succeeded in promoting gender equality. This chapter briefly discusses about long-established legislative and strategic actions in European Union (EU) and United States (US) and presents the recent decisive role of the publication of pay information in limiting inequality.
In Europe, the earliest anti-discriminatory legislative act includes the Treaty of Rome (1957) which, among other issues, is directed towards pay equality between men and women for equal work (Article 119). The European Commissionâs 2010â2015 strategy aimed to promote equality between women and men; prioritised the key areas for action including equality for women and men in economic independence, pay for work of equal value, decision-making, dignity, integrity and ending of gender-based violence; and underlined the contribution of gender equa...