Equal employment opportunity refers to a practice in management where employers give equal chances of selection to all qualified candidates. In most countries, it is illegal to discriminate against a job applicant by gender, religion, race, age, color, sex, or national origin. The policies of equal employment opportunity do not aim at obtaining equal outcomes but focus on ensuring that all applicants have equality of employment opportunity in the market (Lockwood, 2004). Alternatively, it is credible to assert that the laws of equal opportunity are used as measures of affirmative action. Such actions allow people who have been discriminated in the past to be assessed on the same criteria as all other applicants.
Importance of Women in the Workplace
Most companies have realized the importance of having equality in the workplace. As a result, it has been established that companies with the highest gender diversity rate perform better than those with the lowest rate. Even though most companies do not yet know the benefits of gender diversity, there are several reasons why the contribution of women in the place of work is essential (Lockwood, 2004). If companies can just take any qualified candidates regardless of their gender, they can raise their competitive advantage in the long-run.
In addition, having more women in the workplace decreases the cost of employee turnover. In most cases, the rate of employee turnover in organizations may be high if such organizations do not allow flexible work arrangements. In a case where there are flexible work arrangements, care sharing becomes easy, and the company attracts the most talented people in the market who are ready to work in the organization for long. If the retention of employees is high, the company saves on resources such as time and money that could be used in advertising, interviewing, onboarding, termination pay, and other administrative costs.
On the other hand, the presence of women in the workplace improves the performance of any organization. One of the reasons for the performance improvement is that women enhance shared perspectives during the decision making process. If women get a chance to participate in the analysis of situations, greater efforts are stimulated since they are keener to details than men. As a result, the concerned company can also get solutions prior to the occurrence of dangerous situations in the future.
Strategies for Hiring Women
Organizations that need to ensure gender balance should come up with several strategies on how to attract women and retain them for as long as they are energetic. As a result, there is a need for companies to use various approaches that are friendly to women (Nino, 2006).
First, companies should put women in positions of power. This type of woman empowerment ensures adequate female representation in positions of power, which attracts other women to such organizations. With such attraction of big profile people, it becomes easy for an organization to get more women that are qualified whenever they have a vacancy.
Secondly, organizations should have better policies that take care of the welfare of women. For example, organizations with strict rules and regulations on discrimination are likely to attract more women because they need assurance that the place of work is safe for them and there is no discrimination based on their gender.
A third strategy is for an organization to come up with benefit programs that are female-friendly. For instance, a company may offer benefits such as prenatal care, family planning options, and gynecological exams among others.
Fourth, a company may adopt recruitment and selection practices that the organization’s job adverts reach places with the highest number of women. As such, it becomes easy for the company not only to attract many female applicants but also to get the most qualified women out of the total number of applicants.
Importance of Training
Training is as important as any other motivation strategy used by organizations to help their employees perform better. Organizations wishing to embrace gender equality ought to provide training for women to empower them and develop their leadership intelligence (Frett, 2010). With such training, women are in a position to prioritize organizational activities, set time for specific activities, and manage their stress levels.
An organization that has low employee stress is likely to perform better than those that just recruit employees and do not take the initiative to develop them but expects them to perform. However, considering the fact that the business environment is dominated by men, women need to get more insights on presentation and communication, strategic thinking, team building, emotional intelligence, performance management skills, and delegation.
Effective and Unbiased Hiring Process
An organization that needs to hire both men and women ought to have a fair recruitment and selection process. For instance, the organization may make gender bias a corporate issue. With such knowledge, the recruitment officials would be keen to consider qualified women during the hiring process. To ensure the effectiveness of the hiring process, the recruiting managers may need to use methods such as structured interviews, reference/background checks, job offers, pre-employment screening, and behavioral interviewing among other methods. The use of structured interviews makes it easy for the managers to compare answers and observe trends among interviewees since all questions are the same.
To ensure that the obtained data is reliable, the recruitment officials can repeat the interviews. The nature of the questions can be varied where the interviewer rephrases the interview questions and alters their tone to suit different interviewees. As such, the structured interviews allow candidates to offer comprehensive answers and a situation can be thoroughly analyzed.
According to Frett (2010), managers can also use behavioral interviewing as a strategy to ensure that they increase the chances of selecting women during recruitments, and contribute to the feelings of fairness, validity, and reliability. However, managers are advised to conduct reference checks every time they need to hire new candidates.
Reference checks ensure the accuracy of all the listed credentials and experience. As a result, the manager is in a better position to get the candidate with the required experience and the best match for a given company’s needs and demands. In addition, the recruitment officials should be confident as they present the new employees to the management. In addition to the background checks, an organization that conducts pre-employment screening is able to select the best candidate based on the information gathered during such checks (Sloan Network, 2009).
This is because the pre-employment screening uncovers such as criminal records and history on the use of drugs about any potential candidate. In addition, post-offer screening is important for the purposes of gaining more information related to pre-existing conditions and medical history, which helps in the making of compensation decisions.
References
Frett, D. (2010). Pay equity: Good for business and good for working women. Web.
Lockwood, N. (2004). The glass ceiling: Domestic and international perspectives. Web.
Nino, L. (2006). Women; Feminism, sexuality, and equality in the work place. Web.
Sloan Network. (2009). Questions and answers about women in the workforce: A Sloan Work and Family Research fact sheet. Web.