Women In The Workplace Case Study

Over the course of the last one hundred years many changes have occurred within the realm of the United States workforce. Many of these changes have to do with bringing more diversity into the workforce. Specifically, one work group that has changed tremendously, in the eyes of the business world and the public, is women. Now, more than ever, women are a big part of the workforce due to changes in public opinion and laws that have been established to protect women from being discriminated against. According to Kranc, nearly fifty percent of the S&P One Hundred Companies have women in the highest levels of executive leadership. This may be a drastic change from twenty years ago, but there is still much work to do in bringing equality to women

However, not all companies have the reputation that Nordstrom has created. Microsoft, a major tech company, was just hit with a major gender discrimination lawsuit late last year. Katie Moussouris, a former employee of Microsoft for seven years, filed the suit claiming that Microsoft mistreats women on various employment practices. She elaborated by saying that Microsoft payed her and other females less money than male co-workers, chose less qualified men for promotional opportunities over women, and consistently gave women lower performance reviews compared to their male counterparts. The case is still ongoing, but Microsoft could stand to lose both reputation and revenue if the court sides with the plaintiff. (Fortune, 2015) For example, in 2011 Walmart was facing a lawsuit in which they would have had to pay out billions of dollars to their female workers due to gender discrimination. Unfortunately, Walmart won the settlement and did not have to pay a dime, but their reputation tarnished because many thought that they were cheap and got away on a technicality. (Phillip,

The law makes it illegal to discriminate against any protected classes with regards to any employment practices. More specifically, it prevents employers from treating employees differently based on demographics when it comes to compensation, opportunity, and general employment. (Shams-Molkara, 2007) The reason that the law may have been broken is due to the claim that female employees at Microsoft were discriminated against on various levels that impacted the day-to-day work that they were performing. If I were to be in charge of changing Microsoft’s policies on diversity I would make a few changes to get the ball rolling in the right direction. First, I would mandate monthly diversity training for all employees and focus in on gender discrimination. According to Nguyen, diversity training must be tailored to the organizations diversity goals. (Nguyen, 2014) Therefore, it’s critical that the training be tailored to the topic of gender discrimination because the recent lawsuit that is bringing awareness to the organizations