Managing Diversity in Employement

Managing Diversity in Employment

Identification and Discussion about Segregation in Labour Market with National and Governmental Perspective

The purpose of this essay is going to identify and discuss the main things of segregation and discrimination in term on national and organizational issues in Singapore. Due to segregations in labour market, which are ethnic, age, sex or gender, disability, and sexual orientation, there are pros and cons for each of them. In the following paragraph, the writer is going to elaborate and discuss with further information.

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Labour market is a place that employers and employees interact with each other. Employers want to hire the best candidates, while the candidates are trying their best to suit the job requirements. Hence, labour demand is the employers in an organization and labour supply is the candidates who give their abilities to the company. (Times Internet Limited, 2014)

Labours in the market are based on age, race, ethnicity, gender, disability, and sexuality. In the following paragraph, the writer will identify and discuss the national evidence that talk about statistics labour market in Singapore.  

In the organization, there is no much segregation of ethnic group because there are several ethnic groups of people who work together, such as Indians, Chinese, Malays, and others. For example, Marriott Hotel and HSL in Singapore have put opportunities for people ethnics to works together. In order to maximize the potential of teams in term of managing workplace diversity, the companies’ believes an inclusive and harmonious workplace. They believe in selecting the right people and developing employees’ competencies to work in diverse environment, such as self-awareness, adaptability, and team work. For example, people interact with different profile so that assimilate them in an organization. Another event is annual workers dinner, the company mixes them up so that they do not seat with same nationalities. They can mingle, catch up, and have lots of fun. (Government of Singapore, 2014)

Ethnicity is a tool of identity formation and imagination to involve in boundary-formation, conflict and racism. Hence, there occurs racism in Singapore. For instance, Singapore Malays are imagined to be incapable of or uninterested in entrepreneurial endeavours. In contrast, Singapore Chinese are seemed to be natural entrepreneurs to seek profit at every opportunity regardless of their ethnicity. Another example, in Chinese culture, ignores differences in sub-ethnic groups, social class, places of origin and so on. (Kopnina, 2004, p.249) Hence, Singapore government is supported the labour market, which contains people who are segregated by ethnic, age, sex or gender, and others. Even, the segregation in term of ethnic in a society occurs in order to respect people’s preferences. For example, most Indians are living at Little India and one of their authentic shops is Mustafa. However, it allows other ethnics to shop there as well.

Stereotype is a highly potential influencing for discrimination. Thus, disparaging opinions, myths, and others overshadow the good qualities, characteristics, and abilities of older workers so that they tend to receive disadvantage in a workplace. However, the government set certain rules so that many companies have bolstered older workers’ willingness and abilities in an organization. For instance, in McDonalds, most of the morning shifts are older people because they will be more diligent and willing to wake up to work in the morning compared with the middle or young people. Hence, older people have opportunity to work in the morning and others in the afternoon and evening. On the other hand, the segregation can show some respects to the senior people. For example, people who work for long time in the company will be pay higher than junior level.

In case of Singapore government, it has provided a chair for older people in accommodation. For instance, it provides special chairs for older people, disable, pregnant, and people with child in the mass rapid transit (MRT), bus, and other public transportations. Furthermore, the government has done certain policies in Singapore, such as government has reduced employers’ wage costs by lowering the Central Provident Fund (CPF) contribution for older workers, has encouraged employers to make a training lessons for workers above 40 years old with subsidized who earn less than $1,500 a month, and also has encouraged to retraining the mature workers through video-based training programmes and courses which provided by National Productivity Board (NPB). (Debrah, 1996, p.819)

Stereotype occurs when individuals are not judged by their own unique characteristics or merit but on generalized characteristic based on group they belong to. People usually stereotype due to disadvantageous of women for selection, promotion decisions, and placement. Hence, there occur invisible barriers that prevent women in reaching the upper echelons of management. (Pichler, et at, 2008, p.466)

However, the writer believe that the successful company is when it wants to respect each other regardless of their sex or gender and other disparities, instead consider on what advantages it will gain due to differences. For example, Mr. Antony Page as a General Manager at Marriott hotel in Singapore believes in diversity benefits. 60% of management teams are led by women. This leads the company to be successful and increase people awareness of its good brand names. Another example, Tet Wai Holdings Pte Ltd in Singapore, Maxine R. Hays as a President in that company said that Women must be trained for the technological revolution for they are not left behind and bring benefit for companies and their own selves as well as men. (The Singapore Business and Professional Women’s Association, 1982)

Moreover, segregation in term of sex or gender due to woman financial stability, like adequate health care and adequate Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings. Mostly, women have around 40 per cent lesser savings in their CPF accounts than men. (Wee and Hill, 2013) Though Convention to Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which Singapore acceded to in 1995, it still on the progress to demolish the sex or gender discrimination because some organizations have not eliminated the discrimination fully.

There are several companies that prefer in the equal opportunities for every employee regardless of their gender, race, age, ability and others. For example, Han’s F&B that adopts tripartite fair employment practices in 2008. Han’s F&B company profit has increased since it hires people with disabilities (PWDs) to the company. Its profit jumped to more than 200% than previous years. (Fook, 2011) Hence, this company is tolerated with disparities in employment, including disable workers.

In term of disability, Government of Singapore has been very supportive because it launched the Open Door Fund in 2007 in order to provide financial support to redesign jobs, modify workplaces as well as train people with disabilities. For example, Government provides the Assistive Technology Fund to help disabled students and employees purchase the technology devices for the sake of their education and work purposes. (Human Capital Singapore, 2012)

Sexual orientation in the workplace also does as the government stated in Singapore, it is trying to implement the non-discrimination climate against sexual orientation in an organization. The reasons for organization allows the sexual orientation workers because they might bring better performance, enhance career progression, creativity, and productivity. (Day & Greene, 2008, pp.640-41)

In term of sexual orientation, in 2007, Singapore government stated that gays and lesbians have no legal protection towards employment discrimination. However, the Prime Minister, Goh, has given proclamation a non-discrimination regulation in the civil service which could be a signal for a real improvement security of gays and lesbians. (Badgett & Frank, 2007, p.170)

Furthermore, in 2008, Singapore government provides an equal protection of the law, which is stated Article 12(1) of the Singapore constitution guarantees equal protection: All persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the law should not be treated any differently. (Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, 2008, p.27)

Segregation in labour market is about putting people apart from another in term of age, gender, race, and ability of them so that a nation and an organization knows the benefits and disadvantages as well as treats them according to their needs. Hence, national and organizational policy might not only giving an equal opportunity, but also providing a diversity management regarding people’s segregation and segmentation.

For knowing the segregation, the nation and organization does not always provide the helpful reaction for the people. However, they could bring a hampered effect for their actions. For example, the older people are being discriminated by an organization.

Furthermore, diversity management is important for a company because it will bring several opportunities for the company. For instance, different ideas and perspective, productivity, increase good circumstances, self-improvement, flexibility, adaptable to change, and many others. Hence, it obtains a compatitive advantage due to implement the diversity management in an organization. (Barrak, 2014, p.231)

In conclusion, the segregation inside the organization and government could be called as a main thing for Singapore to look at, especially sex or gender in organization because there have disparities or stereotype for women in doing certain job. In addition, the organization or even government might consider for managing diversity so that the gap between men and women is getting closer and instead taking some advantages from differences.

In order to render a company to be successful, there are several ways to do, such as evaluating diversity and equality management with a proper evaluation and improving diversity program effectiveness. (Richard, et at, 2013, p.236) For example, in order to gain various ideas with creating a unique package, a design product company could recruit a diverse workforce to enter the company.

References

Badgett, M. V. L. and Frank, J. (2007): Sexual Orientation Discrimination: An International Perspective. 1st ed. New York and Canada: Taylor & Francis Group.

Barrak, M. E. M. (2014): Managing Diversity: Toward A Globally Inclusive Workplace. 3^rd ed. United States of America: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Day, N. E. and Greene, P. G. (2008): A Case for Sexual Orientation Diversity Management in Small and Large Organizations. Human Resource Management, 47(3): 637-54.

Debrah, Y. A. (1996): Tackling age discrimination in employment in Singapore. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 7(4): 813-31.

Fook, H. C., 2011. Philosophy, Policy, Training, and Charity. [Online] Available at: http://www.hanis.sg/hans.html [Accessed 28 August 2014].

Government of Singapore, 2014. Fostering Inclusive and Harmonious Workplaces. [Online] Available at: http://www.mom.gov.sg/employment practices/Pages/WDM.aspx [Accessed 29 August 2014].

Human Capital Singapore, 2012. Hiring the Disabled – Mere Words by Employers or Real Deeds?. [Online] Available at: http://hcs.com.sg/v2/index.php/info/view_news/hiring-the-disabled-mere-words-by employers-or-real-deeds- [Accessed 28 August 2014].

Kopnina, H., 2004. Cultural hybrids or ethnic fundamentalists? discourses on ethnicity in Singaporean SMEs. Asian Ethnicity, 5(2): 245-52.

Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, (2008): Singapore’s Fourth Periodic Report to The UN Committee for the Convention on the elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Singapore: Fabulous Printers Pte Ltd.

Pichler, S., Simpson, P. A. and Stroh, L. K. (2008): The Glass Ceiling in Human Resources: Exploring the Link between Women’s Representation in Management and the Practices of Strategic Human Resource Management and Employee Involvement. Human Resource Management, 47(3): 463-79.

Richard, O. C., Roh, H. and Pieper, J. R. (2013): The Link between Diversity and Equality Management Practice Bundles and Racial Diversity in the Managerial Ranks: Does Firm Size Matter?. Human Resource Management, 52(2): 215-42.

The Singapore Business and Professional Women’s Association, 1982. The Employment of women in a restructuring society, Singapore: SBPWA.

Times Internet Limited, 2014. Definition of ‘Labour Market’. [Online] Available at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/labour-market [Accessed 21 August 2014].

Wee, V. and Hill, S. 2013. Gender dimension to inequality in Singapore. [Online] Available at: http://www.aware.org.sg/2013/10/gender-dimension-to-inequality-in-singapore/ [Accessed 29 August 2014].