Khan, N., KoracâKakabadse, N., Skouloudis, A. and Dimopoulos, A. (2019) âDiversity in the workplace: an overview of disability employment disclosures among UK firmsâ, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 26(1), pp.170-185.
The present article aims at discovering the current stance of disability employment as an integral part of workplace diversity in general. This systematic review of 274 sustainability reports across the UK demonstrates that there currently exists a gap between the legislature outline for people with disability (PWD) employment and corporate disclosure of the job accessibility for this vulnerable group. The authors of the study are professors and lecturers of business ethics, policy, and leadership in UK-based tertiary educational establishments.
The research was conducted as a quantitative and qualitative systematic analysis of the sustainability reports from various UK firms, encompassing small, medium, and large enterprises. For each report found through the GRI database, a 1-5 rating was given based on the extent of the corporate disclosure of employment and job accessibility for PWD (Khan et al., 2019). The primary limitation of the research concerns the fact that the data used for the analysis is secondary, and the reports have been presented by the companies interested in their corporate image. Hence, there is a risk of analyzing biased information that cannot be checked by the researchers. The findings of the study demonstrate that more than 200 companies from the sample presented either vague corporate disclosure of PWD employment or no disclosure whatsoever (Khan et al., 2019). For this reason, the fundamental argument of the study demonstrates that there is a severe communication gap between the job opportunities and employment equality for PWD and corporate disclosure of the issue. This academic article is, by all means, beneficial for both researchers and business owners, as it presents insights into the current issues with diversity in the workplace and unequal attitudes towards people with disability, in particular.
Mazibuko, J.V. and Govender, K.K. (2017) âExploring workplace diversity and organizational effectiveness: a South African exploratory case study, South African Journal of Human Resource Management, 15, pp. 1-10.
The present study dwells on the peculiarities of the interrelation between diversity in the workplace and the efficiency of the organization. The research explores how embracing corporate diversity may lead to the rapid growth of a strong corporate culture and better organizational outcomes for the team. The authors of the present research are the representatives of the South African business and management schools, and they have extensive experience in scholarly research.
The fundamental objective of the present study was to evaluate how management perceived the value of diversity in the workplace and to compare this evaluation to the actual correlation between the levels of diversity and organizational efficiency. This mixed-methods survey included 227 South African employees and presented questions on the matter of the employees’ stance on diversity and organizational performance. The primary limitations of the study include the study’s concentration on one particular South African company and the lack of additional statistical analysis techniques. The findings of the study accepted four out of five presented hypotheses, claiming that diversity drives transformation and enhances performance.
The diversity, however, does not directly influence organizational performance, driving the change and transformation that lead to performance boost instead. While primarily providing insights into the diversity compliance of the company in question, the findings extrapolate to the companies worldwide. This study was primarily motivated by the newly accepted legislature on promoting and securing diversity in the workplace. Since these types of legislatures are introduced worldwide, it is of paramount importance to make sure that management becomes motivated to embrace diversity in the workplace.
Human Resources
Pak, K., Kooij, D.T., De Lange, A.H., and Van Veldhoven, M.J. (2019) âHuman resource management and the ability, motivation and opportunity to continue working: a review of quantitative studies, Human Resource Management Review, 29(3), pp.336-352.
The present study presents a number of insights into the issue of worker employability and human resource management. The gap created by high workforce exit rates and low employability rates for young workers has served as precedent to explore the employment peculiarities that would both improve the retention rates and pool new human talent. The authors of the present study are professors of HR studies, management, and psychology in the universities of the Netherlands and Norway.
The study is a systematic review that encompasses 110 research studies on the ability to continue working, including both employability and workability, the motivation to continue working, and the employment opportunities (Pak et al., 2019). The primary objective of the research was to look into the existing scholarly evidence and draw tangible solutions on better retention and employability. The limitations of the study include the inability to conduct meta-analysis and the lack of the study’s generalizability due to its primary concentration in the European labor market (Pak et al., 2019). The underscored outcome of the present review is the high level of interdependence between job satisfaction, motivation to continue working, job demands, and resources.
Thus, the higher are the demands for a particular job, the more resources should be provided by the employer. In case of imbalance and prevalence of demands over resources, the retention rates drop significantly within the enterprise. Moreover, the employability rates also decrease because the demands for entering the labor market are incompatible with the young workersâ expertise. Although the findings of this review are not revolutionary by nature, they still contribute to the field of HR. This research once again emphasizes the need to create a balanced work environment where the demands are reached not through labor exploitation but through motivation and resource support.
Kwon, C.K., Han, S.H. and Nicolaides, A. (2020) âThe impact of psychological safety on transformative learning in the workplace: a quantitative study, Journal of Workplace Learning, 32(7), pp. 533-547.
Psychological well-being and emotive support of the employees are included in the area of expertise for HR managers worldwide. The present study dwells on the idea of the correlation between the feeling of psychological safety in the workplace and the motivation for transformative learning. The authors of this quantitative study are management professors from Oakland University and the University of Georgia in the US (Kwon et al., 2020). Their intention was to explore the reconsideration of human resource development in the modern working environment.
The objective of the study was to define the extent to which psychological support, which encompassed such notions as social support, attitude towards uncertainty, and criticality, contributed to the transformative learning and innovation among employees. There are three major limitations of the study, namely, the risks of perceptual biases in the self-reported survey, lack of causality among the variables, and demographic limitations. Nevertheless, the primary findings of this cross-sectional survey demonstrate that higher levels of psychological support in the workplace account for more confidence in transformative learning, innovation, and creativeness. Indeed, the majority of the respondents indicated that while feeling comfortable and safe in the workplace, they felt more motivated to share unconventional ideas with fellow employees and management, and they were more prone to look at the issues critically (Kwon et al., 2020). Hence, this study plays a crucial role in the transformation of the job description for HR managers. If previously, their primary goal was to ensure that the employees were provided with all the necessary resources, now they should also be preoccupied with the employeesâ psychological well-being and its impact on performance in the long term.
Reference List
Khan, N., KoracâKakabadse, N., Skouloudis, A. and Dimopoulos, A. (2019) âDiversity in the workplace: an overview of disability employment disclosures among UK firmsâ, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 26(1), pp.170-185.
Kwon, C.K., Han, S.H. and Nicolaides, A. (2020) âThe impact of psychological safety on transformative learning in the workplace: a quantitative study, Journal of Workplace Learning, 32(7), pp. 533-547.
Mazibuko, J.V. and Govender, K.K. (2017) âExploring workplace diversity and organisational effectiveness: a South African exploratory case study, South African Journal of Human Resource Management, 15, pp. 1-10.
Pak, K., Kooij, D.T., De Lange, A.H., and Van Veldhoven, M.J. (2019) âHuman resource management and the ability, motivation and opportunity to continue working: a review of quantitative studies, Human Resource Management Review, 29(3), pp.336-352.