Equal opportunities and invlovment

Explain the difference between equality and diversity

From my understanding equality is something that all individuals are entitled to which allow us to have the same rights and privaleges as everybody else, meaning that we all should be treated fairly with equal respect and value. On the other hand, diversity describes the individual qualities and characteristics that set us all apart and make each and every one of us different and unique. For example, appearance, ethnic background, skills, interests, eye colour etc...

Margaret Mountford, who used to be Sir Alan Sugar’s advisor on “The Apprentice” stated that women should only be appointed to senior positions on merit. There should be no positive discrimination. Review the article below and state 3 arguments for and against her views.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/career_and_jobs/article6830916.ece

After reading the article on The Times online it is clear to see that Margaret Mountford is a strong believer that women should not receive special treatment in that there should be no positive discrimination. For example, she believes that women should not receive higher position jobs simply because there must be 50% of women on the board, they shouldn’t not just be there to make up the numbers. According to Mountford (2009); “Women should stick at it, hang on in there. In the professions, certainly, women can get to the top. But they don’t always want to. You can’t complain that you are not on the board if you decide you want to leave the mainstream, have a few years off, then come back and not work the hours.”

To some extent I would agree with this opinion, however there are certain aspects of her argument in which my attitudes and beliefs do differ slightly. I totally agree with her belief that women should not be appointed to higher positions simply based on the fact that they want to reach targeted numbers to achieve equal opportunities. I believe that rather than encouraging equality this is likely to result in a lack of skills and inequality, for example a man may be better qualified to do a job than a woman applying for the same job, however if a woman gets the job over the man just because the organisation feel inclined to recruit an equal number of women to men, this would be unfair on the male candidate who deserved the job more. On the other hand, if a woman is better equipped to do a job and a more suitable candidate overall, I feel that the better candidate should receive the job, I believe that this would be a better and more fair basis on which to determine equal opportunity.

Age legislation came into force in 2006, as an employer what impact might this have – brain storm some ideas. What stereotypes do we tend to hold about younger and older people? Suggest two ideas as to how organisations can attempt to change these attitudes.

When new legislations are passed, they tend to have some sort of implication or effects on organisations. The age legislation came into force in 2006 and according to the Office of Public Sector Information (2006), it covers employment and vocational training. The age legislation ensures that people are not discriminated based on their age, therefore eliminating the possibility of prejudice for example; if two people of different age groups apply for the same job the age legislation makes sure that both are treated fairly.

Visit two organisational websites to benchmark practice in relation to equal opportunities and detail the most innovative practices.

B&Q

According to McCarthy (2010), ‘From products and working practices to store layouts and training, B&Q continue to promote equality of opportunity in everything they do, so there are no barriers for anybody who wants to be part of the B&Q team.’

B&Q also have a strong belief that a diverse workforce is the key to company success as this creates a wide variety of different talents, expertise and experience. For example, more than 1,200 B&Q staff speak over 60 different languages with many being multilingual. (McCarthy Recruitment, 2010)

According to DIY.com (2010), B&Q say that one of their main policies is to ‘eliminate discrimination and promote equality of opportunity in employment regardless of age, gender, colour, ethnic or national origin, culture, religion or other philosophical belief, disability, marital or civil partnership status, political affiliation, sexual identity or sexual orientation.’

Tesco

One similarity which I noticed between B&Q and Tesco’s practices in relation to equal opportunities is their recognition of the benefits of a mixed-age workforce. By using this approach, Tesco has been able to identify the fact that older employees are more loyal and less prone to absenteeism and have used it to their advantage. According to Tesco (2005) they were one of the first companies to positively encourage the recruitment of the 50+ age group.

Other ways in which Tesco has made efforts to improve its diversity and equal opportunities are by increasing the proportions of:

· Female store managers and senior team members.

· Store managers and senior team members of ethnic groups

· 45-54 year-old store managers and team members.

(Tesco, 2005)

Conclusion

In my opinion equality is a major contributory factor to staff motivation therefore it is vital that managers provide employees with as much opportunity for equality as possible so that they are stimulated to work harder. Diversity is also vital in creating a highly skilled workforce with a broad variety of attributes.

References

Diy.com, (2010) Environment [online] Available from: http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/corporate/content/environment_ethics/ethics/respect.jsp [Accessed 17 April]

McCarthy Recruitment, (2010) B&Q [online] Available from: http://www.mccarthyrecruitment.com/retail-employers/featured/b-q [Accessed 17 April 2010]

Tesco (2005), Tesco corporate responsibility review 2005 [online] Available from: http://www.tesco.com/csr/f/f2.html [Accessed 17 April 2010]

Times Online, (2009) Hang in there, Margaret Mountford of The Apprentice tells women [online] Available from: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/career_and_jobs/article6830916.ece [Accessed 17 April 2010]