Beyond Glass Ceilings and Brick Walls - International Labour ...

Without a strong commitment, and a policy that will direct decision-making,
initiatives to improve the quality of work life in organizations can be short-lived
and arbitrarily dispensed with.
Perceptions and awareness of a gender policy vary among senior management.
It is clear that there are widespread misconceptions and even fear of having a
policy. Many felt that their companies did not discriminate in an unjust manner
between men and women at recruitment and therefore there is no need for a
gender policy. Others felt that adopting a gender policy may disrupt the social
harmony within the organization and create more problems for women. However,
none questioned the different rates of recruitment between men and women for
different job categories, accepting this to be part of social reality that one has to
contend with. There is a widespread prevalence of a very narrow notion of
gender justice, limiting it to a narrow definition, even within the context of
recruitment.
A simple comparison of women and men in an organization to assess if an
organization is having a good gender profile is too simplistic and clouds
many issues. This was attempted by some male managers. The presence of
more women in certain departments was given as an excuse and rationale as
to why there were less or none in other departments. Accounts, secretarial,
and now, computer divisions are becoming concentrated with women. This
was flagged by some as successes in being fair, and to show that they
recruited women. Senior management needs to be sensitive to maintaining
a qualitatively better profile of the staff, with greater equality in the
distribution of staff at all categories and levels. Here, what is important is
that there is no direct or indirect discrimination at recruitment, but companies
adopt a proactive stance to create opportunities that are attractive for women
and men to join at all levels; where candidates also have a fair choice in
selecting careers depending on their likes and dislikes as well their aptitudes,
rather than face a situation of open hostility or discrimination.
The fear of having a gender policy may be the realization that there is an
explicit binding nature of such a clear statement. However, the fact that a
policy can be developed that can be progressively improved upon and to be
inclusive of issues within a workable timeframe was not clear in the minds
of managers. Furthermore, the processes of policy formulation can be
designed to be a learning experience that can prepare employees, including
management, to adjust to required changes. Such processes or approaches
were not known to the management.
The human resource development officer of the tea trading company
explained that “The distribution of women in the organization hierarchy
reflects past recruitment patterns. Therefore the number of women in
senior posts is few. We do not have women in senior executive positions
other than in the finance department. There is a tendency to recruit more
men than women, mainly because the line of work requires a lot of travel
and women find it hard to drive, go out of Colombo on work or even
work late at night”.
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