BSBDIV501 Manage Equality & Diversity in the Work Place | Unilever

This study is based on Unilever who is a British Dutch transnational consumer goods company with the headquarter in London. It provides its products and services worldwide. It is diversified in products such as it offers cleaning products, beauty and personal care. Food and refreshment etc. There are different categories of equality and diversity or companies discriminate individuals on the basis of age, gender, disability, race, religion, sexual orientation, maternity and pregnancy, civil partnership and marital status.

As it serves worldwide, so it is important for this company to employ diverse workforce and by conducting this study it analyses some challenges related to workplace diversity along with strategies to remove them.

This study is going to show some advantages of employing diverse workforce within an organisation. It will show consequences of workplace discrimination on the basis of different mental disability. It helps the company in increasing productivity by making its workplace more innovative. It will also show some challenges occur at the time of promoting diversity and equality. Research methodology and its components like research approaches, types, data collection and analysis also plays an important role in research project.

Diversity is based on mainly 5 types as many companies discriminate people on the basis of different cultures, disability, religion, race like skin colour, pagan gender etc. All these types of equality and diversity are being discussed as below:

Pagon gender: Pagon is an individual who do not believe in religion as if they worship more than one god. As per this, it is stated that it is an idea that everyone is either male or female as there are only some differences of biological. Women and men can be identified as biological features and certain personality trait. But there are several companies and people who discriminate people on the basis of gender. Males are given more priorities than female and diversity in this context means to give equal opportunity to both male and female.

Culture: Culture refers a group of people and the way of doing things. It consists on social norms, behaviours which can be found in human societies and customs. On the other hand, cultural diversity can be defined as a group of having diverse people from different customs and cultures which have knowledge of different languages etc. For developing diversity in workplace, it is important for the company to employ employees from different cultures which have different ways of performing things. It can increase knowledge of others regarding different languages and cultures, norms.

Disability: Disability means a condition that makes difficult for that disable person to perform some activities in efficient manner as like normal people. This situation and disability may be mental and physical. There are several people and companies who discriminate people on the basis of this disability and disability of people to perform some activities. But companies should provide equal opportunities to this type of people and employ disable people as well.

Religion: Religion is a social cultural system which have some different types of behaviours, morals and ethics. Different religion may or may not contain various elements ranging from divine and faith. Religion diversity is the fact that there are several and significant differences in religion beliefs. Employing people from different religion can not create barriers in the path of the success of the company. So, company should focus on employing diverse workforce on the basis of different religion.

Race: Race refers an individual's personality and characteristics which includes bone structure, ski colour, hair colour, eye colour etc. Ethnicity refers to cultural factors like nationality, regional culture etc. On the basis of these characteristics, several companies discriminate employees. But it does not matter as them main aim of company should be skills and experience. So, it can be said that by employing different races of employees, it can make it self successful.

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P1 Research proposal defining questions and Literature review

Aim: “To identify strategies and approaches to avoid workplace discrimination and promote equality at workplace. A case study on Unilever”.

Objectives:

• To identify the concept of workplace diversity on the basis of mental disability along with benefits for Unilever.
• To analyse barriers occur in promoting diversity at workplace.
• To identify approaches and methods of developing workplace diversity and reducing workplace discrimination on the basis of mental disability.

Research questions:

• What is the meaning and benefits of workplace diversity?
• Which barriers occur when Unilever promote diversity at its workplace?
• Which methods and strategies solve problems of workplace discrimination to promote it at workplace?

LITERATURE REVIEW

Theme 1: Meaning and benefits of workplace diversity

As per the view of Cloutier and et.al., (2015) workplace diversity or treatment to different cultures of employees in equal manner give several benefits to the company. Innovative working environment and increased overall productivity is the main benefit. When employees from different background work together then they share their knowledge and skills with each other. It reduces the chances of errors in work and produce qualitative and productive work. On the other hand, Boekhorst, (2015) said that managing workplace diversity increase company's reputation and brand image which increase its sale. When an organization employs diverse workforce and do not discriminate them then people feel respected and valued. They also stay with the company for the long run.

Theme 2: Barriers related to workplace diversity

According to the Wasen, (2015) language and communication is the main problem that is being faced by employees working in diverse workforce place. Different cultures of people have knowledge of different languages and it is not possible for different culture of employee to understand that language. This problem creates miscommunication situation and conflicts as well. Whereas, Durney, (2015) argued and said that workplace diversity create the problem of labour turnover because some employees resist to accept changes and employing diverse workforce. They feel discriminated when company give priority to local employees as compare to different and other countries of employees. They face several problems while working with them and it leads increased labour turnover. By employing different cultures and mental health of people, an organization faces several problems. Mental disable people or employees cannot concentrate on their work which can become the reason of decreased and poor quality. It directly impacts on the overall performance and brand image of the company.

Theme 3: Strategies for promoting workplace equality and solving relevant problems

As per the view of Page, (2019), there are several approaches and ways by which Unilever and other companies can manage workplace diversity in an effective manner. Rewards and benefits is the best way which motivate employees to work with different culture of employees. By providing financial and non-financial benefits to employees, company can manage workplace diversity. On the other hand, Ruggs and et.al., (2015) said that training is the best way which allow employees to know and understand different languages and cultures. When they have knowledge of different cultures then they find easy to work with people. It is stated that people with having mental disability can not be recovered or cured but it is a myth. By giving them proper attention and guidance, manager can get the work done from them and for that they need to give special treatment and monitoring their working performance. By providing them special training as well they can be employed in a workplace in an efficient manner.

P2 Research method approaches

Research types: There are 2 types of research, qualitative and quantitative. It defines and refers the way of collecting data, their analysis and interpretation. It is an important step as further stages are depended on this step. The type of research decides approach and philosophy of research. In the type of qualitative research, non-numerical data are being gathered. By observing, feelings and emotions of participants, researcher collect data for this study. Quantitative research is all about numerical data. For getting answers of all questions related to the topic, researcher conducts internet based survey and get data in numbers form (Newton and Burgess, 2016).

Research approach: Inductive and deductive are 2 approaches of research inductive and deductive. Inductive is the generation of brand-new theory which develops knowledge of researcher. On the other hand, deductive is the collection of hypothesis data and it is a testing of existing theory. It may give unauthentic data to researcher so, for this study researcher will select inductive research approach (Opie, 2019).

P3 conducting primary and secondary research

Collecting and conducting primary and secondary research is also important. It allows researcher to make the project successful by analysing, interpreting and getting reliable data.

Sampling: Sampling means to select and target a group of people among the whole population. In the context of research, it can be said that it is not possible for scholar to get data from all people so it targets and select some people. For getting informations, researcher will select 20 employees of Unilever as a sample (Sutton and Austin, 2015).

P4 Data collection tools

Data collection: Data collection is an important part in the whole research project study. It is important because without having proper informations and data, researcher cannot complete research project. For getting answers of questions related to the topic, researcher take help of data collection. There are 2 types of collecting data such as primary and secondary. In the type of primary data collection, researcher get authenticate and new data which are not being used before. This is the reason it is called primary. Questionnaire, interview are some sources of this type which is being selected for this study (Harriss, MacSween and Atkinson, 2019). Secondary data are those which are being used before as this type of data are being collected from internet, books and journals etc.

Data analysis: After collecting data, analysis and making changes as per the topic is called data analysis. Qualitative and quantitative are 2 types of data analysis. The selection of the type depends upon research type. For this study researcher select qualitative research so, analysis will also be done by qualitative tool by systematic themes. On the other hand, quantitative analysis is being done by statistical tool such as SPSS.

Ethical consideration: To know the difference between the right and the wrong is called ethics. Consider some factors by researcher while conducting research is important as it can make the project successful. Some ethical consideration involves: to not put pressure to participants for giving answers, collecting data in an effective way and keep secure all personal informations of participants shows the way of conducting research.

 Data Analysis and findings

P5 Research outcomes

Interpretation: From the above data it is interpreted that 16 employees of Unilever believes that workplace diversity is beneficial for their company. They said that by managing workplace diversity in an effective manner, Unilever can accomplish its goals and take competitive advantages. On the other hand, 4 employees denied and said that they do not think that by managing and employing diverse workforce company can take competitive advantages.

Interpretation: From the above data it can be interpreted and said that Unilever mainly focus and use autocratic leadership style. 8 employees said that in most of the situations, Unilever follow autocratic leadership style which decreases their morale as they do not involve all employees in decision-making process. On the other hand, 7 employees said that the company focus and follow democratic leadership style and give opportunity to all backgrounds of employees to take participate in decision-making process. 5 employees said that the company follow transformation leadership style.

Interpretation: On the question of benefits of workplace diversity from 20 employees of Unilever, it is identified that 9 employees believe that managing workplace diversity increases overall productivity of the company, Whereas, 7 employees said that it decreases labour turnover and increase retention rate. The Least number of employees or 4 employees said that employing diverse workforce improve relationship among employees.

Interpretation: From the above data, it is interpreted that 7 employees of Unilever said that at the time of promoting workplace diversity and employing diverse workforce become the reason of conflicts due to language barriers. On the other hand, 8 employees said that resistance of employees and adaption of this change is the main problem. 5 employees also interpreted that diverse workforce lead increased labour turnover.

5 Recommendations for managing workplace diversity and equality

Interpretation: In this open-ended question some ways are being given by employees of Unilever for managing workplace diversity in efficient manner. Some employees said that training is the best way by which employer can provide knowledge to employees about different cultures and languages. Some employees said that by providing rewards like appreciation, celebrating success, bonus, company can manage and make all employees agree for adapting changes. 

P6 Reflection

By conducting and reviewing the above study I can say that, it increased my knowledge regarding workplaces diversity. I knew several benefits of promoting diversity at workplace and consequences of discrimination. It is interrelated with ethics as to treat all employees in an equal manner. I also knew the importance of following steps of research methodologies in a systematic manner as all steps are interrelated with each other. Along with benefits, I got to know that promoting diversity at workplace is not an easy task as it creates several problems. Analysing data after gathering also plays an important role in making the research successful. With the help of strategies I learnt that every problem has solution as it needs patience and willingness to solve it.

P7 Recommendations and conclusion

As per the above study, some strategies can be recommended to the company which can help it out in managing workplace diversity which is the main aim of the company. It is identified from the questionnaire part that the company follow autocratic leadership style which is not beneficial for the company and employees as well. It decreases their morale because leaders do not give opportunity to employees in their decision-making process. So, they need to follow democratic style as it will motivate employees and help in managing diversity at workplace. It can also be recommended to company that it needs to focus on group task and locate tasks in a group. It will allow employees to talk with each other which will improve their relationship.

CONCLUSION

From the above study it has been summarized that workplace diversity and equality played an integral role in accomplishing goals and taking competitive advantages. Workplace diversity provided several benefits like innovative working environment, qualitative work, productivity etc. It has also shown some challenges occur due to employing workplace diversity. Some strategies like training to employees, rewards, motivation, team work has been also shown in this research study which helped the company in accomplishing its pre-determined goals. Following steps of research methodologies and data collection also played a vital role that allowed researcher to make the project successful. From this study and questionnaire it has also identified that different people have different needs and thinking and with the help of questionnaire, qualitative and reliable informations achieved that make research authenticate.

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