Introduction
Modern global trends in human resource management are characterized by enhanced attention to tentative social inequality issues through equal employment opportunity policies and strategies. The persistent discrimination in the workplace that minority demographics and women are facing daily necessitates governmental and corporate action to minimize the burden of bias on these populations. Despite the enactment of the legislature and the emergence of equal employment opportunity and non-discrimination policies in the corporate world, these provisions exist primarily on paper and fail to ensure that vulnerable populations obtain non-biased treatment when hired or promoted. Abundance of factors ranging from social, cultural, corporate, and to interpersonal relationships and stereotypes hinder women’s equal employment opportunities.
Statistics indicate that women and men do not have equal opportunity in corporate careers, with male prevalence in leadership positions (Chisholm-Burns et al., 2017; Predescu, 2017). Indeed, “women constitute slightly more than 50% of the U.S. population, represent approximately half of the labor force, serve as breadwinners in over 40% of homes, and control 70–80% of consumer purchasing and spending” (Chisholm-Burns et al., 2017, p. 312). A similar percentage is representative of other countries in the world, including the countries of Europe and Asia, demonstrating the global female workforce trends (Mollah and Uddin, 2018). However, there is a significant level of female representation in the highest rank leadership positions. According to Chisholm-Burns et al. (2017), in the U.S. corporate sphere, “women represent only 4–5% of C.E.O.s and hold less than 25% of executive- and senior-level positions and less than 20% of board seats” (p. 312-313). The indicators are even lower for Asian countries where female C.E.O.s constitute only 2-5% (Mollah and Uddin, 2018). Thus, despite the laws enacted and policies developed, women continue to face inequality in their opportunities to grow professionally and move along the corporate hierarchy.
Problem Statement
Despite the seemingly practical implementation of the law’s provisions and designing of equal terms of hiring and promotion, there exists an invisible barrier for women and minorities that prevents them from progressing along the career ladder and fulfill their potential. In sociology and human resource management fields, this barrier has been afforded a definition of the glass ceiling. These are the “barrier that many women face as they advance through the ranks of their chosen professions but are able to progress only so far before being stymied in their efforts to reach the upper echelons” (Chisholm-Burns et al., 2017, p. 312). This term implies the existence of invisible obstacles in the way of underrepresented demographic groups toward their professional development beyond a particular hierarchical level.
Multiple attempts have been made to break the glass ceiling and invent effective programs, policies, and strategies for companies to ensure that their work environment does not tolerate gender bias in terms of employment. The Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 has introduced a new legislatively supported agenda to businesses and organizations to ensure that all American citizens have equal rights to be employed and promoted regardless of their age, gender, race, or ethnicity (Lambe and Maes, 2018). Another important national initiative in this regard was the founding of the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission, which is aimed at studying and uncovering corporate world barriers for women and minorities (Lambe and Maes, 2018). The persistence of this issue in equal employment opportunity and human resource management has significant social, economic, and business-growth implications.
At a larger social, economic, and political level, women’s underrepresentation in the decision-making positions diminishes the inclusion of the interests and needs of a large population that constitutes half of the national workforce. Without being given the opportunity to represent women in leadership, the female population will not live in a just society (Babic and Hansez, 2021). In other words, inequality in leadership positions in business and governance translates into persistent social inequality in everyday life. On the other hand, at a more specific corporate level, women’s underrepresentation in managerial and C.E.O. positions hinders company potential and competitiveness since organizations fail to use female workers’ expertise and professionalism for achieving company goals. To validate this statement, one might refer to the statistics that show that “women earn approximately 60% of all bachelor’s and master’s degrees and approximately 50% of doctoral degrees, and they hold approximately 50% of managerial and professional-level jobs” (Chisholm-Burns et al., 2017, p. 312). These numbers vividly demonstrate the level of educational attainment, qualification, and professional experience women have to propose to the higher rank of corporate hierarchies but cannot apply due to the glass ceiling.
Thus, the problem that is addressed in the proposed research study is the persistence of the glass ceiling effect for women in the workplace as a significant unresolved obstacle hindering the equal employment opportunity principles. Since the elimination of this problem is a long-term effort necessitating cultural reformation, a systematic change is required. For organizations to ensure effective and sustained change on the way to breaking the glass ceiling in the work environment, they should be provided with a working framework, which will be designed on the basis of the discovery of the most effective equal employment opportunity policies and non-discrimination programs as presented in the case study.
Business Overview
For the purposes of the proposed case study, the Johnson & Johnson Company was chosen, which is a corporation working in the healthcare industry. Its primary operations are characterized by the development of medical products, pharmaceuticals, and consumer goods. The company is a U.S.-based multinational corporation with facilities in more than 60 countries worldwide. The company vision at Johnson & Johnson “is for every person to use their unique experiences and backgrounds, together – to spark solutions that create a better, healthier world” (“Diversity, equity & inclusion,” 2021, para. 5). The company mission is formulated as “make diversity and inclusion how we work every day” (“Diversity, equity & inclusion,” 2021, para. 6). Thus, diversity and inclusion are essential elements in the company’s human resource management.
Johnson & Johnson uses a very strong equal employment opportunities policy, which produces breakthrough results in terms of breaking the glass ceiling for women. In particular, it has been high-ranked as an employer that effectively provides paid maternity and adoptive leaves, family growth support, and paid time off (“Johnson & Johnson,” 2021). In addition, the organization has been granted numerous diversity and women empowerment awards, including 2019 Top 10 Working Mother 100 Best Companies, 2019 Diversity Best Practices, NAFE Top Companies for Executive Women in 2019 and 2020, and others (“Diversity, equity & inclusion,” 2021).
The choice of the business in the healthcare industry is validated by the share of women in leadership positions in this field. According to statistical data, healthcare is the leading industry in which women have the best representation, occupying a higher percentage of leadership positions than in other industries (Predescu, 2017). For that matter, the choice of the Johnson and Johnson Company as an entity working in the production and sales of healthcare products will be used as a case for identifying effective strategies for achieving goals of equal employment opportunity. It will showcase the policies and effective human resource management methods capable of breaking the glass ceiling for women in other industries, where women are disproportionately discriminated against and significantly underrepresented in higher-ranking job positions.
Research Aims
The proposed case study is aimed at investigating the causes and manifestations of the glass ceiling effect for women in the U.S. workforce and selecting effective solutions for resolving this issue in human resource management. The scope of the study will include the indicators of female underrepresentation and discrimination in the workplace in leadership positions, with specific attention paid to the gaps in policies. The ultimate purpose of the study, however, is to generate a working and effective framework for developing successful non-discrimination equal employment opportunity policies using the best practices as evidenced by the Johnson and Johnson company.
Research Objectives
The proposed research study seeks to achieve several objectives that would produce a contribution to the scholarly discussion of the topic, induce further research of the issue, and propose a practical solution to the problem. Firstly, the study’s objective is to collect data on the manifestations of the glass ceiling effect and its prevalence in the U.S. Secondly; the research will seek the causes for the issue as informed by cultural, social, political, and corporate factors. Thirdly, the objective is to identify the policies in Johnson & Johnson’s human resource management that allow this company to be a successful diversity, equality, and inclusion promoter in the workplace. Finally, this study’s objective is to generate a framework and a set of effective practices that would help other companies break the glass ceiling in their workplace.
Key Stakeholders
As stated above, the study is anticipated to have both academic and corporate implications. Therefore, the stakeholders that might be interested and benefit from the proposed study include scholars and academics researching the topic of tentative equal employment opportunity issues. In addition, the study will benefit the managers of corporations in both private and public sectors since it will provide them with practically applicable solutions to achieve high results in the establishing of equal employment opportunity policies. Finally, as the population whose concerns are investigated in the study is women, the female workforce is another essential stakeholder whose professional growth will benefit from this research.
Literature Review
The problem of the persistence of the glass ceiling effect in the corporate sphere around the world and in the workforce in the United States of America has been an ongoing issue. Multiple studies and reports have been written on this topic, which might serve as a valuable source of information for the study. The scope of literature available on the topic ranges from academic publications, including empirical studies, case studies, systematic reviews, and analytical research inquiries, to corporate and organizational reports on industry-specific or company-based indicators of the problem. This literature review is based on the synthesis of the findings from a variety of recently published sources and provides an extensive overview of the manifestations and causes of the glass ceiling effect for women in the workplace and the practices for human resource management used by Johnson & Johnson to combat the glass ceiling.
The term “the glass ceiling’ emerged in the discourse on the workforce due to the persistent invisible obstacles women and minorities faced when climbing the ladder of corporate careers. According to research, self-accomplishment as one of the essential needs of a human being is vital for life satisfaction and well-being (Lambe and Maes, 2018). Without the ability to grow professionally, women are deprived of the opportunity to meet their needs. Indeed, “women pushed to gain the right to remain or begin working in organizations, and they were met with societal push-backs and denied opportunities to develop higher self-esteem and actualize their abilities” (Lambe and Maes, 2018, p. 75). Once the rights had been claimed, the legislative change occurred; in 1972, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act was introduced, and official guidelines for organizational policies in human resource management were promoted (Mollah and Uddin, 2018). In almost two decades, a Federal Glass Ceiling Commission was organized to oversee and prevent the manifestations of the glass ceiling in the workplace in the U.S.A.
The glass ceiling has been recognized as one of the most persistent and difficult to solve issues in the contemporary workplace environment. The barriers to moving higher in the corporate hierarchies make women vulnerable and underrepresented in the workplace, which diminishes the opportunities for their professional attainment, growth, and interest representation at the decision-making levels of governance. Babic and Hansez (2021), Lambe and Maes (2018), and Mollah and Uddin (2018) claim that there is an array of social and organizational factors that play a decisive role in the glass ceiling effect. In Babic and Hansez’s (2021) opinion, the reason why women are persistently excluded from corporate leadership roles is due to the masculine culture. In particular, “this culture consists of a series of norms and organizational practices that promote and define values, stereotypes, behaviors, and a vision of management and leadership that are “masculine” (Babic and Hansez’s, 2021, p. 6). Thus, the masculinity vs. femininity stereotype that is evident in society is reflected in higher ranks of the corporate hierarchy.
Consistent with Babic and Hansez’s (2021) findings, the cultural factor was recognized as influential in the glass ceiling effect by scholars such as Chisholm-Burns et al. (2017), Lambe, and Maes (2018), and Mollah and Uddin (2018). Their studies show that among the obstacles that prevent women and minorities from being given equal employment opportunities, the most evident is work-family balance, implicit bias, harassment in the work environment, and other social and cultural stereotypes that cause burnout and diminished job satisfaction in women. Male dominance in corporate culture promotes the attitudes where women are perceived as weaker, inferior to men, and underqualified (Chisholm-Burns et al., 2017; Lambe and Maes, 2018; Mollah and Uddin, 2018). Thus, there is an implicit bias that is not articulated in any policy (even, on the contrary, it might be officially restricted) but exists in the attitudes inside the companies.
In many cases, the interference between the multiple roles women play in contemporary societies serves as a negative factor for their work-related opportunities. Indeed, as stated by Babic and Hansez (2021) and Lambe and Maes (2018), since women are responsible for children’s upbringing, their performance at work is perceived through the lens of bias, implying that they cannot be efficient performing well in both positions. This factor plays an important role in hiring and promotion practices where men obtain more privileges than women (Chisholm-Burns et al., 2017; Predescu, 2017). Thus, the glass ceiling is manifested through cultural, corporate, social, and interpersonal factors.
The antecedents of the glass ceiling effect are also damaging to women, although they impact society at large and the corporate world, in particular. Srikant, Pichler, and Shafiq (2021) claim that despite the variety of manifestations the glass ceiling has, its implications are damaging to organizations. In particular, “the lack of women and minorities on boards has been characterized as both a breakdown of corporate governance and a missed opportunity” (p. 537). Indeed, since women constitute a significant share of qualified experts in all fields, their exclusion from the leadership positions hinders the possibilities of companies to grow competitively and develop in their respective industries (Chisholm-Burns et al., 2017). Apart from the adverse corporate implications, the glass ceiling provokes such social and individual problems as women’s increased intention to quit, diminished job satisfaction, increased burnout level, and hindered overall well-being (Babic and Hansez’s, 2021). Thus, such effects are disrupting for women as a workforce and cause a vicious circle of the following generations of female workers who are discouraged from pursuing leadership careers.
Given the scope of the problematic issues behind the glass ceiling in the workplace, it is evident that the solution to the problem cannot be an easy one. Indeed, scholars agree that to break the glass ceiling; collaborative and systematic efforts should be applied to change this situation in the long run (Babic and Hansez, 2021; Chisholm-Burns et al., 2017; Lambe and Maes, 2018; Mollah and Uddin, 2018). However, some companies have achieved significant results in their battle against the glass ceiling, among other issues in equal employment opportunity in human resource management. In particular, the Johnson & Johnson Company has a strict Diversity and inclusion policy that implies a zero-tolerance for discrimination (“Diversity, equity & inclusion,” 2021). The company has a separate human resource management strategy addressed specifically at the empowerment of women in managerial and leadership positions. Women are viewed as innovators and lawful participants of the decision-making process, which validates the prioritization of the equality of opportunity in the company (“Diversity, equity & inclusion,” 2021). The corporation practices training, inclusive and diversity-based hiring methods, and develops employment terms for women’s growth.
Thus, as the literature review demonstrates, women are disproportionately exposed to the barriers in their attempts to grow professionally and access high ranks in their leadership careers. It is imperative to address the manifestations of these issues by eliminating their causes. For that matter, best practices should be researched, analyzed, and implemented across the corporate world to ensure that equal employment opportunity is achievable for all. As the example of the Johnson and Johnson company demonstrates, it takes cultural restructuring, policy implementation, and deliberate change management to achieve the results. The proposed research study will collect and synthesize the methods and techniques that have helped Johnson & Johnson break the glass ceiling in their company to provide academia and business with effective practical solutions to this problem.
Reference List
Babic, A. and Hansez, I. (2021) ‘The glass ceiling for women managers: antecedents and consequences for work-family interface and well-being at work’, Frontiers in Psychology, 12, pp. 1-17.
Chisholm-Burns, M.A., Spivey, C.A., Hagemann, T. and Josephson, M.A. (2017) ‘Women in leadership and the bewildering glass ceiling’, American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, 74(5), pp. 312-324.
Diversity, equity & inclusion (2021).
Johnson & Johnson (2021).
Lambe, N. and Maes, J.D. (2018) ‘Female leaders – it’s not just about gender: a case study’, International Journal of Leadership and Change, 6(1), pp. 75-79.
Mollah, M.R.A. and Uddin, M.A. (2018) ‘Factors preventing women to climb up corporate echelon in banking sector: an empirical study of glass ceiling effect’, B.U.P. Journal, 6, pp. 69-83.
Predescu, S. (2017) ‘Data reveals how the percentage of women in leadership has changed over the past 15 years’, LinkedIn.
Srikant, C., Pichler, S. and Shafiq, A. (2021) ‘The virtuous cycle of diversity’, Human Resource Management, 60(4), pp. 535-558.