Bill Myers used a supportive and democratic leadership style to manage people at his organization and to deal with the staff workers’ grievances. By accepting to attend the meeting organized by Lauren and to listen to the workers’ complaints, Bill Myers demonstrates himself as an outgoing and friendly man who maintains the ethics and standards of his profession. The male and female employees worked together towards ensuring full client satisfaction. This reveals a cooperative and harmonized workplace culture (Reeves, 2010).
The treatment given to male and female workers is not related to their various roles, concerning customer satisfaction. According to Bill Myers, male bartenders are more knowledgeable and have more skills as compared to women, a reason they receive higher pay than that of women. This demonstrates unfairness in terms of compensation as the duties of the wait staff are quite difficult as compared to those of bartenders; hence, the wait staffs deserve higher pay. However, both bartenders and the wait staffs possess the required skills and knowledge as credentials for the job. Thus they deserve fair payments and treatments (Reeves, 2010).
Even though both the male and female employees in Bill’s organization share the same opportunities as outlined within the organizational structure, this is not practiced in real life. Wait staff positions, which are mainly for women, require certain skills such as experience, both past and current, energy, joint effort, and ability to serve and satisfy clients. The male bartenders’ jobs require accuracy, knowledge in handling all products, speed, and coordination with other co-workers to enhance the smooth running of the job. Regardless of the requirement of the various equally important skills, the employees are paid differently. In this case, the response of bill Myers in handling the case of Lauren and her co-workers shows his democratic style of management and his likeness of communication between the two groups in the workplace (Reeves, 2010).
The female bartenders have equal opportunities with their male counterparts to aspire for the various positions, as they possess the required credentials. They should be treated equally with the males and concerning their roles and responsibilities as these involve the same energy and strength and all aim at accomplishing the organizational goals. On the other hand, the culture of the organization supports the males, for example. In contrast, both males and females produce the same effort while attending to their assigned roles. Only the wait staffs are expected to split their wages with the bartenders and busboys. This demonstrates unequal treatment between male bartenders and female bartenders, yet they both qualify and are assigned to the same roles (Dodd & Erik, 2009).
The organization is based on a male domain and is patriarchal. Men have been offered the best jobs which are well paying, yet they work less as compared to women. The system in Bill Myer’s organization demonstrates sex discrimination, a reason for the unequal pay between male and female employees. Sex discrimination at work is whereby a person is assigned roles, positions, and payments based on his or her sex. The system places one gender over the other.
Stereotyped jobs, for example, female jobs, like in this case the job of the wait staff, are always paid less as compared to the ones stereotyped as male-related jobs such as those of bartenders. Unequal pay among workers leads to reluctance in the undertaking of the assigned roles, and poor performance. This is a major cause of demoralization among employees hence a vice that should not be encouraged. This can only be solved by evaluating the skills and responsibilities that the two key job holders possess. Equal pay motivates productivity among the employees, creates good relationships between the workers and their managers, and helps the employees to realize their achievements (Alkadry, 2004).
For a candidate to qualify for a job, he/she must meet all the credentials that are required for that position. In this case, the bartenders, wait staff and the busboys all possess the required skills and knowledge for the job, and thus ought to be treated equally. The female bartenders do not have equal opportunities with the men bartenders. In most cases, female bartenders are more preferred than male bartenders. The preference for women is mainly because they are believed to possess more skills in handling customers; they are good team workers, have a good and impressive personality, and are more knowledgeable on how to best attend to their customers (Dodd & Erik, 2009). The payment should depend on the tasks performed and the hours worked. This will ensure equal treatment for all employees.
Female waiters have been known to attend to customers with great care, gentleness, and commitment. They depict great hospitality and quality service to the clients. This impresses the customers and portrays a good reputation for the company. In most of the businesses, for example, the highest percentage of bartenders is that of women. This is the same case with advertisements, whereby most of the advertised bartender positions target women who possess certain credentials. This is an indication that women have higher opportunities of getting such jobs than men (Reeves, 2010).
In almost all organizations and businesses, problems will always occur. It is how one honestly acknowledges and solves them that make people count on him/her. In this case study, unequal pay is the major problem, whereby women are paid less than the men for the same work under the same conditions. They are mistreated based on their sex, yet they both qualify for the job (Reeves, 2010). Also, based on the fact that wait staffs, busboys, and bartenders have different roles, the wait staffs work more as compared to the others and have to bear all the burden of handling customers as they have to directly interact with them. With this, their salary should then be higher than that of the busboys. However, each employee should be paid according to his/ her duties, and according to the hours, one has worked.
The Payment system is unfair, more so to the wait staff whose work is much more than that of the busboys. The payment system is discriminative and unfair and should be dealt away with to ensure equality and equal treatment among all the workers. Dealing away with this discriminative culture will not only ensure a fair and equal system but will also enhance increased productivity as the employees will be motivated to work more. Comparative worth is a plan that tries to correct past injustices. Thus, by developing the above strategy, the problem of unequal pay and unfair justice will be eradicated (Alkadry, 2006).
References
Alkadry, M. (2006). Unequal Pay. Journal of Women Affairs, 10 (2): 18-27.
Dodd, R. & Erik, R. (2009). Fairness and Equal Pay. Journal of Society and Equality, 18 (1): 57-70.
Reeves, M. (2010). Women in Business: Theory, case studies, and legal challenges. New York, NY: Routledge.