Study on Gender Management in IBM for Managing Diversity and Equal Opportunities

◎　薛宸哲

Study on Gender Management in IBM for Managing Diversity and Equal Opportunities

◎薛宸哲

1.Introduction

Along with the development of globalization and world economy, as well as modification in the socio-demographic structure, it correspondingly appears to be diversified in human resource supply in enterprises. From the perspective of gender workforce, the percentage of female has been approaching to that of the male. According to the World Bank, in 2000, female labor force accounted for approximately 50% in US labor market and above 46% in the UK labor market. The similar variationoccurred in Asian, taking China and Korea for instance; female labor force went up from 40.05% and 26% in 1960 to 45.14% and 40.8% in 1997 separately (The World Bank, 2000). In addition, the modern society also saw a number of new transformation, such as the belief in pluralism, the diversity of marriage and family patterns, and lifestyle diversity etc, thatwere all related to workforce diversity. Therefore, managing the increasing diversity of workforce is becoming more vital and challenging for sustainable development of organizations(Barbosaand Cabral-Cardoso, 2007).Diversity management does not only mean ‘making equal opportunities policies’, it is also seen as ‘a tool for integration of human resource management strategy areas to deliver the objective of a diverse workforce where difference is valued and recognized throughout all the organizational processes’ (Clifford and Royce, 2008).

This essay focuses on the gender issue in diversity management in IBM Company who has been engaged in practicing and fulfilling diversity management for decades. We realize that female can gain much more equal opportunities and chances only when enterprises reduce the negative effects of gender issues in daily operating. If enterprises recognize the profits brought by successful gender management, it will indirectly push forward the gender equality in the whole world.

2.The gender management policies of IBM and practices for managing diversity and equal opportunities

Diversity, as a significant part of the corporate culture of IBM, was officially recorded into the corporate purpose in 1935. Its diversified culture is that the employees of IBM will not receive unequal treatmenton the basis of their race, age, gender, religious beliefs and health condition(disability or not). The Company will provide equal opportunities and chances regardless of employees’ age, gender, religious beliefs et al.Employees who make contribution to the company all will be rewarded.IBM hasimplemented diversification programs since 1995, in which gender diversity is one of the keypoints.The publishing of this program brought huge development space for female staff of IBM.We are able to identify this tremendous change by looking at the following statistics. By the end of 2001, the amount of female staff of IBM in China subsidiary company occupied about 40% of the IBM local staff. It is especially obvious at the senior management, the proportion of female staff increased sharply from 0 in 1995 to 57.14% in 2001. There are 3 female General Manager of IBM in Asia Pacific at present. Currently, women worker accounted for22% of executives, 29% of management and 20% of top rate income in IBM Company. It is obvious that the gender program in IBM has achieved remarkable results from evaluating these quantitative indicators.

It is generally recognized that the specific physiological cycles of women formed barriers to their career. These barriers primarily reflect on the multiple characteristics they perform as wives, mothers and workers, as well as the conflicts between social expectations to them and their self-expectations. Thus, it is quite significantthat enterprises and society assistant women transiting among the three characters successfully and support them in particular physiological periodsto maintain the continuity of their career development in their career path. Enterprise support seems to be the most direct and effective method for professional women. Therefore, based on women’s physical and mental characteristics, IBM adopted series of targeted gender diversity management policy.

1)Adopting flexible working time. IBM sets the flexible working regulations for their staff. Thirty percent of IBM Global staff will arrange for onsite or remote communication with customers, the rest of the employees are able to settle flexible working time according to regulations every day. Each IBM employee can draw up working plan based on their personal condition with the flexible working hours. Also, they will partially or fully complete their work by tele-community.

2)Offering support for female employees’family life. IBM recognized that children and dependents care is the primary concerns of the national staff of the company in accordance with investigation and historical experience.Thus, IBM provides comprehensive and attentive child care for their employees. The company finances to establish the child care centers within the company and in the vicinity to offer day care to children. Moreover, the company sets up cooking, yoga and exercising classes for parents. Meanwhile, it enacts theslack suspension post program for employees, such as the female workers may take six to eight weeks maternity leave with full wages, father or adoptive parents may rest for a couple of weeks with salaries et al.Several employees with special situations can suspend posts fortwo to three years.

3)Executing women in technology program. IBM implements the‘succession plan’, which point out that there must be at least one woman when a manager selects three successors. The companydeems that women stand in a relatively weak position in high-tech enterprises at present. This program aims to promote the further development of women in technology.

4)Providing career development counseling. In 2002, IBM supplied professional advice to approximately 40,000 women and provided guidance to more than 11,000 humans. IBM has severalparticular practices in fostering women’s career development, mainly focusing on the following points. Initially, the company launchesWebinars (web-based seminar) for their women staff so that they have opportunities to receive training in anywhere at anytime. Secondly, the company sets up the ‘women’s book club’ in order to organize the female employees quarterly to read books on career.Furthermore, IBM regularly carries out organizational career seminars. Every two months, it would invest IT executives and female employees to share their working experience to assist female employees setting clear career goals and working out career scheme. Also, IBM implements the tutorial system thatit appoints the correspondent mentorsto their employees according to the specific circumstances of each person. Mentors will conduct regular conversations with employees, putting forward recommendations on their professions, family etc.

3.Recommendations

To perform better on diversity management and maintain its sustained competitive advantage, IBM is probably adopting the following recommendations. Like offering elastic working time, the companymay set workplaces according to work conditions. For instance, theinformation technology companies like IBM who has the flexible working method and sound performance evaluation system may allow the elastic workplaces. This not only providesmore family space for women, but retrenches visibly in operational costs for enterprises.

Additionally, the company can encourage women to establish well relations with male staffwithin the company and set reasonable rewards system. It will boost the complementary of ideas and harmonious relations within the company so that facilitate team collaboration.

Furthermore,introducing the gender indicator in executive performance assessment is also conductive to successful gender management. The companyshould renovate the performance assessment system promptly under the influence of maternity leave and flexible work arrangements. Also, it is practical to stipulate certain places for female recruitment, retention, promotion and development. Take IBM for instance, enterprises not only require the smallestpromotion indicators for women employees, but need to assignthese indicators in recruitment and retention as well. These all contribute to keep the balance between male and female staff in one enterprise.

4.Conclusion

The gender management strategy of IBM is essentially a human resource management that promotes gender equality. Conducting gender management strategy ina profit earning enterprise both increase the business efficiency and enhance the social gender equality. It is obvious thattaking account of fairness and efficiency is possible for an enterprise. Nowadays, with the development of globalization and main direction of market economy, diversity management is the primary capability an enterprise should own. Apparently, the enterprise that has sound diversity management is always outstanding in financial area with rapid development.

However, we should realize that implementing a diversity management program successfully is not an overnight task.Also, it is more challenging to transform the existed working environment to a totally new one. That is probably why assemblages of companies have not realized the significant of diversity management, especially for the enterprises in developing countries. Thus, managing diversification factors better in an enterprise must be thoroughly understood and executed in order to foster its development.

（作者單位：無錫職業技術學院）