Assignment

Managing Diversity at
Spenser Owens and Co.
Submitted to: Prof. Animesh Bahadur

Group I2

Anubhav Sood 18F213

Depayan Konar 18F218
Namrata Chavali 18F233
Pratik Aher 18F239
Udbhav Shenoy 18F257
Question: Would the organization need to adapt its policies in any way in
case it starts working on legal support for/protection of rights for
Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes (defined as per the Constitution of
India) all over the world?
Answer:
No, company need not have to need to adapt its policies in any way in case it starts
working on legal support for/protection of rights for Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled
Tribes (defined as per the Constitution of India) all over the world. Although it will
need to manage the diversity of organisation in more effective way.
Company is already following the US law under The Civil Rights Act enacted in 1991
which protects the employees of the company against discrimination. It compensates
employee’s basis of burden of proof, money damages and mixed motives cases. It can
be reflected in company’s present policies.
Company is committed to the fairness and equality and encourage its employees to not
to discriminate. It also started the initiative of sensitivity training to raise people’s
awareness of prejudices they have. But here are some problems they are facing now.
Even though company promotes diversification in the work place, it fails to instil the
values among its employees. This has resulted in increase in number of complaints
regarding the discrimination based on colour.
If the company start to work in India it has to follow the norms laid by the Indian
Constitution. One of the acts of the constitution is Prevention of Atrocities (POA) act,
which penalised the people if they discriminate Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe
people in India. If such situation arises in India, they will have to face the extreme
circumstances from the government.
The basic policies of company against discrimination are already in place but are not
effectively worked out. Company should focus on diversity management. First, it
should find potential threat that can threaten the diversity of the organisation which can
be stereotyping, tokenism, ethnocentrism or gender role stereotype. Second, it should
manage diversity by providing strong leadership, change culture and management
system or provide diversity training and education.
Also, apart from these measures, policy change with respect to India will not work
effectively if applied the other branches of Spencer’s around the world. It is so because,
discrimination in different countries varies differently and policies should be enacted
by organisation after understanding the local demography.
Question: How to implement the diversity policy in case Spencer Owen Co.
establishes its office in India?
Answer:
To implement the diversity policy in case of Spencer Owen Co. if it establishes its
office in India, it should follow the following method.
Step 1- Affirmative Action: Affirmative action means taking actions in recruitment
process, hiring, promotion and compensation to eliminate current effects of past
discrimination. India is most diversified country, and to implement the diversity
policy effectively, company should take affirmative action in hiring scheduled caste/
scheduled tribe people or more women to promote diversification. It should provide
equal pay to equal rank and should promote women in managerial position if they
deserve it. The affirmative action against the discriminatory action taken in the
country will help in laying the foundation stone to implement effective policy.
Step 2- Countering Employee Resistance: Crucial problem the company will face in
India will be the mindset of its employees which is conditioned to discriminate the
people based on long history. Discriminatory actions based on gender, caste, religion
are so instilled in the demography of India that sometimes person unconsciously
discriminate the other person during the conversation. To make them cope up with
new policy is a most difficult task. To do this, process like hiring, compensation and
promotion should as fair as possible and should be transparent. People should believe
they are being treated equally by the organisation. Justification should emphasise
redressing the past discrimination and the practical value of diversity, not the
underrepresentation.
Step 3- Program Evaluation: After taking the respective measures, company should
evaluate whether it has fulfilled the objective of effectively attaining the diversity of
organisation or not. Basic question can be asked to analyse the initiative like- are
women and minority reporting directly to senior managers? Attrition rate of female
and other minority people has decreased or not? And many more such questions. This
evaluation should also sync with the Indian government initiative to attain the equality
in the country.
Apart from these steps, company should also focus on reverse discrimination. It may
so happen that while trying to equalise the work culture by giving emphasis on
minority or women, the upper class or men started to feel discriminated as. This will
result in major breakdown of the organisation.