Managing Equality and Diversity in Organizations
The Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) has challenged and contributed to managing equality and diversity across the UK and US workforce. According to Kumra, Manfredi & Vickers (2012), the US and UK labour markets are expected to exhibit a highly heterogeneous workforce in the 21st Century due to demographic and population changes. Majority of the workers in the US will no-longer constitute white males because women will dominate workplaces. A similar scenario is predicted in the UK as women are expected to exhibit higher workforce growth than men by occupying 80% of work positions. White, able-bodied men are expected to occupy only 20% of the region’s workforce (Kumra, Manfredi & Vickers, 2012). Through various advocacy initiatives, WLM has contributed significantly to gender balance issues in the labour markets, thereby creating a likely female workforce dominance scenario in the 21st Century.
Binard (2017) stipulates that WLM was established in 1960 to fight for women’s rights to train and enter all occupations and advocated for equal pay for equal work between men and women in the US. The movement later spread to the UK and gained popularity in managing equality and diversity of the region’s workforce. Equality in the workplace is the act of providing equal and fair work terms and opportunity to every employee irrespective of age, race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, and physical ability of workers (Sharma, 2016). As such, the concept of equality is being used by WLM to manage social diversity issues of employment and advocate for reward based on merit for all men and women who provide services in industrial and professional sectors. The ultimate meaning of equality is that everybody ought to be treated symmetrically as a holistic approach to the doctrine of equal treatment.
In theoretical perspectives, the WLM exclusively utilizes the liberal approach in steering equality between men and women in the employment places. In liberal perspective, equality is based on merit rather than individual differences. Sardoc (2016) asserts that equality is structured on equal access to opportunities like rewards, services, and positions by applying the neo-classical economies where the reward is based on merit. The fact that women can execute equal work tasks as men imply they have the right to benefit from equal rewards as men. The radical approach to equality complements the liberalistic view where equality is focused on results but not on policies and procedures. The WLM argued its fight for equal pay in the workforce because both men and women applied equal efforts to produce equal results that deserved equal pay. Kumra, Manfredi & Vickers (2012) cites equality as a dignity where all human beings are equal in moral worth and dignity. As such, discrimination in work terms and opportunities profanes the universal declaration of human rights, equality and dignity.
The WLM advocated for equality and diversity challenges in the workforce through the transformative approach/theory where structural and cultural strategies are applied level interaction, policies and opportunities in the workplace. This aspect involves WLM review of organizational structures such as recruitment, training, compensation and corporate culture. The movement achieved its agenda by challenging the existing unconscious biases regarding gender in the workplace and called for women’s empowerment to take up positions in the job markets. The concept of inclusion in work recognizes human dignity and addresses disadvantages based on discrimination by prioritizing equality as a significant consideration factor in employment. Indeed, the Women’s Liberation Movement (WLM) has challenged and contributed to managing equality and diversity across the UK and US workforce.
