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Linking the advancement of women to senior management positions and gender barriers / Gender equity and its impact on Eskom

Look at the challenge of gender equity and global trends and its impact on Eskom / Women form 52 percent of the adult population in South Africa, the majority of the
population, but their status in the workplace is marginalized. The Commission of
Employment Equity 2003 report revealed that women represent only 37% of the total
workforce and 21% of all senior management positions and only 14% of top management
positions. The study firstly investigates if gender barriers are creating obstacles for the
advancement of women to senior management positions. The evidence of the research
indicates that barriers do exist and the most prominent of these barriers included
organizational culture, men not supporting women in the organization, division of labour,
lack of after care facilities and women not supporting each other. Organizations need to
admit that barriers do exist before any meaningful change can be made to the working
environment of women. Secondly the study investigates the impact of gender equity targets
as some organizations are attempting to increase the number of women in their business.
Although gender targets results in an increase of women in the workplace it has negatively
impacted the morale of men. Lastly the effectiveness of some of the strategies like
mentorship, training and development, networking, flexible work policies are examined.
These strategies will only be effective if the organizations are committed in ensuring a
balanced workforce. Organizations needs to realize that diversity should be seen as a great
opportunity to be encouraged and nurtured. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / MBL

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/147
Date January 2005
CreatorsGovender, Vanisha
PublisherUnisa
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeResearch Report
Format1 online resource (133 leaves)

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