1. What factors could explain the shift from traditional pay administration to a more strategic approach to reward over the last 40 years?
2. Suggest ways in which ‘employee voice’ may influence the approach of managers to strategic HRM.
3. What are the benefits of trade unions to workers and managers? Research recent trade union involvement in an international context. What role did the union play and what was the outcome of its involvement?
4. What is a glass ceiling? Describe evidence of a glass ceiling in your organization or an organization of your choice
5. Refer to Reflective Activity 9.1 below and its answer at the end of chapter nine. What does the answer tell us about stereotyping and unconscious bias?
We may not think – or prefer not to recognize – that our own thought patterns are stereotyped, especially around workplace discrimination, but they probably are. To illustrate this, try Reflective Activity 9.1.
If you got the answer right – well done … but see how your friends do. If you did get it wrong, then you are in the majority – the author’s experience is that typically only 10% of any given population will get the answer right first time. For those who did not get the right answer, the problem is usually one of stereotyped thinking.
Stereotypes have been defined as ‘Cognitive structures that store our beliefs and expectations about the characteristics of members of social groups’ (Cuddy and Fiske, 2002: 4).
Stereotypes may be explicit or implicit (Greenwald and Banaji, 1995). Explicit stereotypes arise from our conscious thoughts and beliefs; on the other hand, implicit stereotyping (Greenwald and Banaji, 1995) is the result of unconscious experience, beliefs or social interaction. Implicit stereotyping, also known as ‘unconscious bias’, influences the way we respond to a wide range of diversity issues (including our attitudes to gender, ethnicity, sexuality, age and disability).
Stereotypes therefore reflect an ‘automated’ response to a person or situation. The stereotype may be over-positive about the attributes of a person but, too often, where there is difference, the stereotypes are negative and become the source of negative prejudices. In turn, these prejudices – often with little or no realistic foundations – both become the source of injustice towards the individual and fail to see the wider benefits and contributions which an individual can make.
Stereotype not only applies in obstructing opportunities for minority groups, but also in continuing to criticize minority groups even when they have achieved high success.
In his Thought for The Day, broadcast by the BBC, Professor Robert Beckford noted the success of the tennis player Serena Williams as she was made Sports Illustrated ‘Sports Personality of the Year’. Williams was the third woman to be appointed, and the first black woman.
Despite this achievement (and Williams’ outstanding achievement as a tennis champion) Beckford noted the social media criticism of the award – that Serena Williams was ‘not sufficiently feminine’, and ‘too muscular’. The bias and bigotry continued and even suggested that the race horse American Pharoah would have been a better nomination for the award.
Examples of stereotype discrimination of this nature demonstrate just how far some societal attitudes still need to change – in this case, illustrating gender and ethnicity in combination as a source of stereotype prejudice.
(Robert Beckford, Thought for the Day, BBC Radio 4, 15 December 2015. Used with permission)
Stereotypes are prevalent in society. To illustrate how they can affect the workplace, this section will consider stereotypes in relation to older workers. But similar principles (with different reasons for stereotyping) can apply to women, disabled people, ethnic monitories, and so on.
To illustrate one form of stereotype, consider the position of older people in the workforce. Older people tend to be viewed as less capable in cognitive skills and as wordy and irritable (Nuessel, 1982; Braithwaite and Gibson, 1987; Coupland et al., 1991; Gold et al., 1994). On the other hand, older people are seen as more likely to be friendly than younger people (Chasteen et al., 2002). In the workplace, older workers tend to have reduced training and development opportunities, and they are seen as less trainable, less interested in developing their careers and so more suitable for lower skill or lower responsibility roles (Taylor and Walker, 1994).
But despite these stereotypes, the evidence shows that the advantages of older workers are often overlooked. For example, the potential benefits of older workers include that they are more experienced, mature and stable (Marshall, 1995), with higher crystallized intelligence (applied experience/wisdom) (Stuart-Hamilton, 1991). Brosi and Kleiner (1999: 101) found older workers to be more loyal and more committed to the organization. Despite some perceptions that older workers are slow to embrace change, in a study of dental practitioners’ response to change Watt et al. noted that ‘being older was not a barrier to change for some’ (2004: 487). Overall, research on older workers suggests that age rarely accounts for more than a 10% variation in manual work performance – with no variation for clerical workers (Rhodes, 1983). Indeed, McCann and Giles (2002) saw little difference in work performance between younger and older people, and may even favour the overall performance of older workers.
Therefore, one societal approach to avoid stereotype and subsequent discrimination towards older workers is to introduce laws to prevent it. Indeed, this has happened in many countries. For example, in the USA, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act was originally introduced to protect employees in the 45–65 age range, but the start age was subsequently lowered to 40 since ‘this was the age when most expert witnesses [to the US Senate] considered age discrimination in employment became evident’ (Macnicol, 2006: 235–6). In Europe, the European Council Directive 2000/78 sought to eliminate workplace age discrimination, and in the UK there were voluntary measures, then subsequent legislation – the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 and the Equality Act 2010. However, in contrast to the US approach which aimed to protect employees from a specific age, European and UK legislation was written to protect employees irrespective of their actual ages.
As we think about the impact of stereotyping towards individuals or groups, it is also necessary to consider the impact on the individuals themselves. Sherif (1956) found that when we develop strong loyalty within one group, we tend to develop negative perceptions of groups to which we do not belong. A similar result was identified by Tajfel (1970), who found that being categorized as one group could produce negative attitudes and beliefs about other groups. All of these findings may obviously affect stereotypes and prejudices, with groups and individuals not working to their best. However, in addition to group impacts, it is also important to look at the impact on the individuals who suffer stereotyping attitudes.
Research has found that where individuals are aware of the negative stereotypes against them, it negatively affects their self-perception and scores in performance tests. Steele and Aronson’s (1995) Stereotype Threat Theory suggests that implied or explicit inter-group comparison may impair performance if there is a threat of negative stereotype of the ability of the group. Furthermore, even the knowledge that a negative stereotype (‘stereotype threat’) exists towards an individual or group is sufficient for those individuals to feel a burden of suspicion and therefore to underperform, even if the stereotype is not believed (Steele, 1997). Levy (1996) showed that subliminally believed stereotypes of older people by older people lowered self-perception judgements and cognitive performance. This was supported by Abrams et al. (2006) who found that a high stereotype threat reduced the cognitive test performance of older age groups. This important research demonstrates that legal sanctions against discrimination are not enough, and that the underlying culture and attitudes within a workplace need to be addressed.
How can the effects of age stereotype be mitigated? It has been seen that where there had been previous contacts between groups which may otherwise have been subject to stereotype threat and prejudice (for example, older and younger people working together), this negative effect was moderated. Contact theory suggests that where we live and work with others who may be ‘different’ from us, we actually learn to value and respect those differences, so that contact between groups may reduce inter-group negative stereotypes (e.g. Allport, 1954; Pettigrew, 1998). This suggests that diverse organizations will tend to be more effective, flexible, and able to work internally and externally than non-diverse organizations. However, Rothbart and John (1985) found that in order for contact theory to help in reducing prejudice and stereotype, it was important that three criteria were met: that behaviours within the minority group were not consistent with their stereotype; that contact was relatively frequent and in a range of different social contexts; and that minority members were perceived as typical of their cultural group.