Discrimination has been an inherent practice in most workplaces. Many of the discrimination arise from simple reasons like the age to more complex ones such as skin color, ethnic background among others. According to Mahapatra (2015), when job discrimination arises, women become the often obvious victims. The argument is that women do not get job promotions as often as their male counterparts. Besides, Gopal argues that there is a predominant challenge in the valuation of the influence of women at places of work. Additionally, the democratic and constitution rights of most women have been shuttered in some organizations. Particularly, if women can be given access to the leadership roles, they can bring a lot of influence in the work environment such as sharing out ideas, leading to their empowerment (Teasdale, Fagan, & Shepherd, 2012). As such, the example of the interview held at AstraZeneca provides a crucial guideline for projecting a better future. Thus, this paper tries to respond to some of the questions asked in the interview.
Question 11-13
What are some of the Possible Explanations why the Earnings for Women in the Sales Department is less than Male Counterparts
There are various reasons that can lead to discrepancies at places of work that may result in less earning for women as compared to their male counterparts. Some of the possible factors could be the level of education, the extent of technical know-how, and geographical location. Evidently, women at AstraZeneca were being used as objects for sex, which denied them the chance to leverage their salary with their male counterparts (Mahapatra, 2015). The implication is that male dominance was still operational within the institutions of the United States of America. Consequentially, this yielded to the breaching of the law of the Labor department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. Outstandingly, in a poll conducted on 124 women at AstraZeneca, another contributing factor why women received less pay than men emanated from the believe that men had a greater responsibility of taking care of the family and therefore, needed more money. Therefore, despite efforts to ensure inclusivity in workplaces, women like AstraZeneca have to deal with issues of male dominance in their careers.
Question 11-14
Special things that can be done to Ensure Similar Problems do not Arise Again with an Assumption that the Lawsuit Continues Using the Point Plan
Accomplishing salary equity for both men and men is not an easy task. An organization needs to strategize the structure for payment while considering factors such as job ranking, qualifications, and the level of education of its workforce (Mahapatra, 2015). Remarkably, categorizing jobs into various classes or ranks ensures that members of staff working in the same job group receive the same amount of salary, ensuring that there are no commotions that may result from members who feel they are underpaid. Job description provides in details the roles and responsibilities that are required of each member of staff along which the pay scale is indicated. In turn, the job description allows easy job promotions as employees get in the know of what is expected of them to be promoted to the next level up the ladder. Above all, the level of education provides a major determinant in job promotions. As such, the educational levels should indicate a certain amount of salary outlined for them in the payment structure. It outlines all the requirements for the job to help facilitate the qualification status of an employee. Consequentially, this helps in the determination of the amount of salary that such employees should expect. Additionally, there should be an open pay policy that enables the creation of a more productive working culture. The level of work experience should also be considered when strategizing on leveling salary between men and women. Subsequently, this aids in helping the present and potential employees to assess whether they meet the threshold of the job requirement.
Question 11-15
Compensation Plan
A suitable recommendation for strategizing salary inequality would be to introduce a compensation plan that is capable of accommodating varied types of employees. For instance, depending on the level of education, employees who handle high-difficulty jobs should have a higher compensation plan than those employees who handle less-difficulty jobs. Besides, the cost of supplying medicine to the shops may appear difficult than supplying the same medicine to the hospitals. Consequently, more compensation should be based on job difficulty rather than sex. Accomplishing this compensation plan would equate females to their male counterparts. Consequentially, this helps employees to earn extra accruals as they can be paid on commissions leading to the more productive labor force. Therefore, the basic pay for men should not be higher than that of women working under the same job group.
Compensation Plans and Pay Scales
The current job market compensation plans vary considerably with the one that dominated in the AstraZeneca. The compensation plans and pay scales in the current job market are based on a set of job descriptions, job analysis, job evaluation, and pay structures (Mahapatra, 2015). Contrarily, this differs considerably with the compensation plans in AstraZeneca. In AstraZeneca, compensation for work done was mainly based on sex where men were receiving an upper hand while women remained to be victims of low salary. In the current job market, the compensation is usually based on job groups whereby individuals in the same job group receive an equal salary at the end of every month. Besides, in the current job market, compensation is also based on educational qualification. Such qualifications facilitate in ensuring that the staff member carrying out a given task is qualified enough for the job and is both reliable and accountable. Therefore, in the current job market, the Human Resource Managers are very keen in assessing the academic qualifications of potential or working employees before hiring them (Wallman et al., 2009). For the AstraZeneca organization, men were the main beneficiaries of compensation plans as it was believed that they hand higher social responsibilities than women. Besides, women were assumed not to deserve higher salary remunerations than men.
Application
One of the applications of the lessons learned from the case study is that they can establish a standard pay for all the workers working in the same job description. Consequentially, doing this will help discard some of the controversies that occur in organizations. Secondly, organizations should embrace a culture that engages their workers on a full-time basis and establishes a uniform commission for everybody. The implication is that there should be a set percentage of commission for everyone that pushes the workers to be more productive since remunerations are based on how competitive the workers engage themselves in the sales market.
Conclusion
Clearly, salary inequality was the core of AstraZeneca organization. The various reasons subjecting women to low pay were deeply looked into, and the benefits of looking into the point method to determine the pay level for every employee was discussed at length. Additionally, the compensation structure and recommendations for the organization was discussed, and laws have been implemented to ensure equality in payment. Besides, violation of human rights has been addressed to ensure that there is an ethical coexistence of members of staff. Finally, there are crucial insights as to the future of the organization concerning the experiences resulting from the case study.
References
Mahapatra G. P. (2015). Interview with Ms Smita Saha, Vice President-HR, AstraZeneca Pharma India Ltd. South Asian Journal of Human Resources Management. 2(1), 100-106.
Teasdale, N., Fagan, C., & Shepherd, C. (2012). Women’s representation on the boards of UK-listed companies. In Women on Corporate Boards and in Top Management, pp. 128-149. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Wallman, T., Wedel, H., Palmer, E., Rosengren, A., Johansson, S., Eriksson, H., & Svärdsudd, K. (2009). Sick-leave track record and other potential predictors of a disability pension: A population based study of 8,218 men and women followed for 16 years. BMC Public Health, 9(1), 104.
