Dick Smith Foods - Proportion of Women Representation in Senior Management Positions - Case Study Example

HR POLICY ANALYSIS: INCREASING NUMBER OF WOMEN IN SENIOR POSITIONS Prepared by (Name) Professor’s Name Institution Date Introduction The focus of this paper is on formulating distinctive literature reviews on why a company such as the Dick Smith Foods should make sure to incorporate or rather increase the proportion of women representation in senior management positions. Early researches indicated that most of the organisations excluded women from senior management positions as they were perceived to be lacking necessary personality traits that were deemed proper for these leadership slots. In essence, until now women are still unfairly discriminated against by the underlying stringent, inflexible organisational structures and processess. However, there is an immediate need for all organisations including Dick Smith Food to come up with effective ways of ensuring successful implementation of effective and efficient gender-mix policy within the senior management positions. Just like men, sufficiently competent women can achieve great outcomes provided she portrays a rich set of elements like determination, ability to comprehend the set-out rules as well as the capacity to adhere to them in the case of making decisions that will affect the operations of the organisation. Following this line of though, organisations should seek to put up necessary infrastructures like efficient cultures and processess that will serve to attain the foretasted policy. Dick Smith Food is an Australian-based food chain that seeks to avail Australian food products to the underlying consumer market as opposed to foreign-based produce. Formed in 1999, the owner sought to change the perception that foreign-owned food companies had on the Australian market that portrayed them as locally-owned while in the real sense they were from outside of this market and thus, failed to understand the needs of the customer beforehand. It is important to note that Dick Smith Food does not produce its own foods rather it sources these food products from most of other Australian-based and owned firms that has licensed the brand label. Literature Review on Gender-Mix Policy Liff & Ward (2001, p.19) notes that women are not only responsible for rejecting top managerial positions but also the manner for which the entire promotion structures have been laid out within these organisations. It is fairly laid out that organisations form a fundamental platform upon where women can easily comprehend the immediate mechanisms needed for senior positions as well as their respective career prowess. Organisational cultures, structures and eventual practices avail a substantial context for which the comprehension happens (Liff & Ward, 2001). Notably, in recent studies focused on determining the rationale behind women abandoning senior positions and whether indeed they left these jobs because they felt incompetent has thus far been discredited (Marshall,1995) since most of the women went ahead to become more successful in equally or even more demanding senior positions in different organisations. Studies further refute claims that the rationale behind abandoning of these senior jobs did not arise out of conflict between work and family; a lack of motivation and drive or even their unpreparedness for the regulations formulated to oversee responsibility for these demanding jobs (Marshall, 1995). Instead, their respective efforts and ambitions to work efficiently within the organisation and influence elements of that which they referred to as masculine work cultures in fact featured strongly in their reasons for why they felt they were no longer willing and able to continue conducting duties related to these senior positions. Peterson (2011, p.619) ascertains that there is a higher level of proportion of female Vice-Chancellors in Sweden institutions of higher learning due to the underlying political pressure and above all; imminent HR goals and policies that seeks to establish a sufficient gender-mix policy in all of the existing institutions. The proposed gender-mix policy is deemed to be a proper mechanism that will facilitate the improvements in quantitative gender equality in senior managerial positions so that at least 40 per cent of all genders are represented within each senior-held position within organisations (Peterson, 2011). Holst (2015, p.48) indicates that there is a need for organisations to set target and proper legislation that ensure to accomplish equal representation in the highest decision-making levels since the aspect of setting this target for women representation in both executive boards and top managerial positions contributes immensely to the fostering of women’s ascension up to the corporate ladders of senior job duties in the near future. As a result of these efforts, it is expected that there will be a substantial reduction in the level of women abandoning subordinate duties due to limited chances of promotions (Holst, 2015). Lyness and Heilman (2006, p.779-780) argue that gender biasness in top managerial job vacancies within organisations can affect the performance evaluations as well as promotional chances of upper-placed women managers. Markedly, it is stipulated that even though women could be fairly positioned towards breaking glass ceiling formulated through distinctive HR practices, they seem to experience intensive obstacles in comparison to their respective male counterparts (Lyness & Heilman, 2006). Performance evaluations, necessary for promotional opportunities, are found to be affected by the linkage that exists between the mangers’ gender as well as the type of position held within a given period of working (Lyness & Heilman, 2006). Of particular interest, female employees that are positioned within line jobs are deemed to be the most negatively assessed of all managers hence alluding to the perception that negative biasness assessment of women in managerial positions happens because there is a significant level of perceived lack-of-fit of ideas in regards to both job requirements and attributes reflected by women in general (Wigham, 2004). Subsequently, research indicates that there is a correlation between performance evaluations and career consequences for underlying management positions (Lyness & Heilman, 2006). Women that were subjected to immediate promotions under performance criterion posited a high score as compared to their immediate male counterparts, which demonstrates that women performance degree were more strongly correlated to promotional opportunities in comparison to men contenders. Issues in Effective Implementation of the Policy& Conclusion There certainly a significant number of issues that might come about with the efforts that seeks to increase the number of women in senior position in such a company as Dick Smith Food. First, the degree of an organisation’s restructuring prowess might diminish the degree of uncertainties in regards to what the jobs there would be and what they will entail as opposed to if the restructuring process happened in a much stable organisation (Steinberg, 1993). It thus means that women can be effectively be provided with equal promotional opportunities as their male counterparts in case the company has already a stable position in the market. Secondly, given that the existing perception of a promotion process is entirely focused on comprehension, impressing, right personnel as well as being in the right degree of networks as opposed to being formulated on a formal system of assessment of an individual’s capacity limits possible inclusion of women in top positions (Steinberg, 1993). In essence, it is apparently clear that women will likely feel less comfortable with the distinctiveness placed on informal networks for which most performance assessments of promotions are based as well as their inability to influence them. It is notably clear that women will possess a feeling of negative interpretations about their immediate future commitment to execute job functions since they are judged in stereotypes related to women in general as opposed to evaluating them as individual persons. Having stated the above facts, it can be concluded that the existing emphasis laid out on informal networks and the ability to make a certain perception especially in careers within the service industry; as important elements in performance evaluations for promotional opportunities transformed the entire process into a gendered exercise. Women and men are able to perceive the need for a mix of fitting in and the capacity to be distinct in more different degrees because they are expected to fit in with the male social and work culture while being distinctive meant that women should be showcase masculinity in their duties. These women will also likely fail to access sufficient and proper mentor-matching mechanism that is deemed to necessary for conforming their willingness and abilities to certain stable organisational cultures that will eventually help them attain their capacities as top senior managers. Additionally, the existing stereotype that portrays women as more committed to raising children than to develop their careers will also limit the manner for which election into higher management positions will be conducted in the near future within the organisation. References List Holst, E 2015, '» Executive Boards of Large Companies Remain Male-Dominated Monocultures«', DIW Economic Bulletin, vol. 5, no. 4, p. 48. Liff, S, & Ward, K 2001, 'Distorted Views Through the Glass Ceiling: The Construction of Women's Understandings of Promotion and Senior Management Positions', Gender, Work & Organization, vol. 8, no. 1, p. 19. Lyness, KS, & Heilman, ME 2006, 'When Fit Is Fundamental: Performance Evaluations and Promotions of Upper-Level Female and Male Managers', Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 91, no. 4, pp. 777-785. Marshall, J. 1995, Women Managers Moving On: Exploring Careers and Life Choices. London: Routledge. Peterson, H 2011, 'The gender mix policy – addressing gender inequality in higher education management', Journal of Higher Education Policy & Management, vol. 33, no. 6, pp. 619-628 Steinberg, C 1993, 'In Practice', Training & Development, vol. 47, no. 4, p. 9. Wigham, R 2004, 'Breaking the glass ceiling', Personnel Today, pp. 21-25. Read More