Introduction
Over the past two decades, many organizations have invested in learning interventions in the workplace. The major target is to advocate for a positive culture of learning and increasing productivity at work. As a result, organizations are also being pushed to increase the number of training sessions to increase social relations in the environment. Similarly, companies have spent more budget on training facilities to increase workers’ knowledge in the market. Despite the constant growth, the adult learner’s job has disparities affecting their power. More especially, changes in the modern space and the organizational culture have significantly affected employees’ environment. In essence, strategies such as training and workshops have been put in place by human resources developers to solve the problem.
Factors that Cause Disparities in Workplace
Many factors have caused the present challenges at work in most organizations in the world. Occupation inequality is the central issue that is affecting the workers (Botwinick, 2018). Many organizations have found it hard to solve these problems because it has currently become a mindset issue. For example, many employees have the perspective that some of the jobs belong to females or males. Employment inequality is mainly caused by gender inequality, unequal pay, and racial discrimination. Therefore, the three aforementioned factors highly contribute to the current challenges at work.
Gender Inequality
Gender inequality is a problem that started in ancient times. The bias related to gender began in the old times and only escalated in the current world. Research by Ntayi (2020) has affirmed that the commentary and studies on gender have been on the rise over the past few years. The problem has affected not only the employees but also the other sections of the economy such as the employment section. For example, families have been affected by gender bias resulting from the employment sector and society level. Despite the time, society is still troubled by the major causes of the existing occupation inequality in the job place. Therefore, the adverse impacts of the bias continue being on the rise as the issue remains unsolved.
Many factors contribute to gender discrimination in various sectors of the economy. The history of recruitment has affected the current mindset of human resources managers. For instance, a higher percentage of organizations have separated the jobs awarded to women and men (Nachmias & Caven, 2019). As a result, women continue being marginalized in the job selection process. Research has affirmed that it is very rare to find women in technical jobs. Therefore, the issue of gender inequality at workplace continues to multiply because of these mindsets.
Unequal Pay
Equal pay is among the agendas which both the developing and developed economies have been debating. Men are highly paid in most of technical jobs as opposed to women. For instance, research by Abdel-Raouf and Buhler (2020) has affirmed that as of 2018, every man earns one U.S. dollar for every 81.6 cents a woman makes. The gap is wide, and it is even worse in countries such as Korea which has a gender pay gap difference of 34.6 % (Coron, 2020). The inequality challenge has highly affected the empowerment of women for training work (Nachmias & Caven, 2019). Therefore, women are rarely empowered on training because of inequality in the employment sector.
The gap decreases as age increases in some countries such as the United States. In the US, this difference has been narrowed, as at 25 to 34 years for every dollar a man earns, a woman earns 89% (Abdel-Raouf & Buhler, 2020). Despite the change, women are still underpaid in most of the countries. Underpayment to women attracts dissatisfaction at work; thus, most of them never feel the urge to train or learn.
Embezzlement of Funds
Training is one of the important sectors of organization management and reduction of gender bias. However, it has been misused by most of employees in management positions. Training has not been ventured by a large number of organizations in the world. Most of the time, the management sector uses the funds allocated for training women for other purposes in the organization. Research by Vokić et al. (2019) has affirmed that the human resources department is the unit responsible for funds allocated to training programs. As a result, the funds’ diversion has highly affected the needed resources for training workers.
Correspondingly, the diversion of these funds lowers motivation of employees both directly and indirectly. For instance, there is a significant variation between trained and unskilled workers in a firm. Training is one way of increasing motivation and empowerment among the marginalized population such as women. Hence, misappropriation of training funds continues lowering their motivation at work.
Furthermore, misuse of funds for training disrupts the operations of the firm because of net losses. After the diversion of funds, employees cannot contribute to their success plans. More especially, after being underpaid for training packages, they are likely to fail to attend the programs. The imbalance contributes to low skill level among women not empowered. Therefore, variation in skills affects productivity and more future training curricula.
Strategies Employed to Solve Gender Disparities
Many organizations have been on the run to solve gender issues at work despite many adverse impacts based on management finances. For instance, the human resources department has played an integral role in addressing the essential policies geared towards eradicating workplace gender disparities (Kuan et al., 2015). In solving these issues, management and human resources can apply strategies that are not biased to one gender. The organization can invest in training that involves both male and female employees. As a result, they will be handling the issues on equal terms.
Investing in Training of Marginalized Groups
Adult training plays an essential role in the employment sector. As such, many firms are investing in equal employment to all genders, more specifically the sidelined employees, to help solve current issues such as gender inequality in the society. Through training, sufficient awareness is created for employees, which acts as the beginning of the solution. Despite the human resources being involved in solving the issues, workers need to understand the impacts of the disparities at work (Sullivan, 2017). The training segments about the challenges that adult workspace faces will help create a supportive environment towards high productivity through increasing the skill level of the staff. Training is one of the suitable approaches of increasing motivation and productivity. As such, management will achieve the first step towards the final requirement.
Alternatively, the organization can create multiple training segments in a year. Many segments will involve the staff in a part of the solution process. As a result, the team will be instilled with a positive mindset towards equality indirectly. Training does not solve the problem but will help create the best working environment (Armstrong & Landers, 2018). Many organizations have currently invested in training their employees to increase their work skills. Therefore, it will be easy for organizations to develop other strategies as the employees will understand the firm’s major goal towards increasing representation of women.
Creating a Space for Marginalized Groups at Work
In the past, welcoming the minority into an organization was enough to include and solve the issues of disparities at work. In the present world, the policies have changed, and the remedy is based on the actions the firm takes (Taylor, 2020). Creating events that support the marginalized groups at work will establish a healthy environment. Investing in activities such as sensitization days for the women in a firm will help them participate in the current affairs. Similarly, the process empowers the marginalized groups such as women in organizations who can change the working process. The solution mainly begins with equal representation of women and men before the organization invests in other problems that involve the external environment.
Networking has worked as a way of indirectly guiding employees on good skills in an organization. Exchange programs are the best ways of training workers on how to include other staffs in service provision. Networking involves linking the personnel with the relevant authorities responsible for the gender issues at the job. For example, the law and human rights section is the best personnel that human resources can apply to increase awareness of the issue at work (Deva & Birchall, 2020). Hence, it will bring positive energy to training and learning to solve all the staff’s existing disparities.
Investing in Partnerships with Initiatives Reducing the Disparities
The organization’s partnership with other small organizations that are already building and working on initiatives to create an impact in society reduces the disparities at the departments. As such, it will be both an empowering program and a solution strategy to the current challenges that workers face at work. Organizations do not have to be the best in performing their duties; the major aim is to promote the best practices. The main intention is to create positivity and good mindset of solving the issues (Armstrong & Landers, 2018). Therefore, the whole company should participate in the learning and training process.
Role of Human Resources Developers in Minimizing the Gap
Human resources development plays a major role in solving the issue of disparities in the workplace. The role of human resources is administration, change management, and people management (Bhinekawati, 2016). Thus, by using these three roles, they can enact the policies aiming to minimize the inequality problems at job. The three roles are essential in gaining more solutions and reducing the current impact of the bias at the workplace. As such, training and gender pay gap as the major problems will be solved.
Administration
Human resources developers are responsible for overseeing the employee requirements and ensuring that their work conditions are good. The department can use this role to identify the potential weaknesses in every department for easy address. The department can research questionnaires to check constantly the issues that are affecting the whole department. Research by Neisig (2020) has argued that administration through the human resources’ influence can help an organization achieve all the set goals. More especially, when it comes to the issues that affect workers’ productivity, the human resources department is at the forefront of solving the issues. Thus, through their help in discovering what is affecting the employees, they will reduce disparities.
Payroll and performance appraisal are the major sectors that can impact big change in a company. Investing in equal payment regardless of gender is a solution to empowerment at work. Creating policies that consider men and women as equal will help organizations create equal space for men and women in workplaces (Alvaredo et al., 2018). For instance, the fair payment acts have played an essential role in the society. Therefore, solving the existing challenges in the employment sector will create a more friendly environment for work.
Change Management
The human resources department (HRD) is responsible for the process of change in management. The department is always in charge of all the processes that affect the employee. For instance, new changes in the policy sector will be addressed by human resources. The role can be used to empower the workers through positive change enactment and empowering the employees (Chan et al., 2015). Through constant research and change management, an organization will perform well across all the sectors (Gilda, 2020). New policies are introduced by the human rights to cater to the workers at various levels of organizations. The HRD is the perfect section of the organization to implement the process.
Change management can also involve internal organization processes to include the required programs to solve adult learning space inequalities. There have been many challenges in solving the existing level of inequality in the workplace. However, solutions are implemented to create more awareness through sensitization. There is a need to manage the processes well to include all the various levels of employees in an organization (Taylor & Francis Group, 2019). Moreover, the HRD is responsible for checking on the sectors that need more transition. For example, the current problem can only be solved if the employees are included in the plan and understand it. Therefore, HRD has greatly contributed to the current changes in the employment sector.
People Management
The role of management is the most essential in the human resources department and in solving employees’ current issues. People management ensures that the employees are productive, and they have no organizational disputes and barriers to work (Sadaf et al., 2018). Through conflict management, the human resources has managed to see the existing challenges in gender and equality issues. Alternatively, this is the department that oversees the training programs for employees (Silverthorn, 2020). The HRD department can enact a change that will bring more positive impacts to the employees. For instance, creating training projects that will impact their leadership, gender, and equality factors will help in empowering workers. As such, the department will solve the existing bias in the training sector.
Conclusion
Every employee deserves better care and equal pay at work, especially because of the major challenges they experience at work, such as unequal pay, low training, and lack of sufficient representation. Moreover, research has affirmed that gender disparities at work are the major issues that society faces in the current world. Many women have been misrepresented in many organizations as men are given better opportunities through high payments. Therefore, creating room for better and fair performance will help in crafting remedies for the problems faced at work.
References
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