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Targets Versus Gender
With the current competitive dynamics in the market place most, companies have opted to adopt targets that are assigned to their employees in the companies to achieve their objectives as they maximize their profits. However, this has not been very efficient as it has encountered one major challenge: sexism and gender imbalance. The contemporary society has become gender sensitive with the push for gender equality being quite renown. Feminism is absolutely on the rise because the women are very aggressive yet the society still embraces male chauvinism.
The battle of sexes has been experienced in companies when targets are assigned to both sexes. Although the targets are primarily meant to monitor the progress and growth of the company, both sexes hold divergent views about this. Most of the times, the male sexes feel that female sexes are considered to be too sensitive, favored and assigned lesser targets as they are viewed as the weaker sex. More often than not the targets are seen to be skewed to favor the female sexes contrary to the men’s expectation of equality
Currently, the drive to be in leadership position is very high. Considering the fact that we live in a male chauvinist society, men tend to be dimmed fit for managerial positions with higher pay rates. The battle of sexes thus becomes evident when companies, in the wake of change, still go ahead offer men internal promotion yet they secure the top spot for an outsider lady who could be having more experience than them. This makes men feel that sexism is dominant in the allocation of the position with more bias lying on the female sexes who. Women on the hand feel that if awarded the same positions, men are unsupportive and non-inclusive thus their efforts are not recognized. This eventually results in a mutually defensive and acrimonious culture marked with lack of co-operation within the organizations. Of course, the company will not achieve its targets because of the battle of sexes
The price to pay or the effects the companies have to grapple with include the uprising of cultural dysfunction among their employees. This occurs as the two battling sexes hold divergent views with each of them not being considerate of one another. Although some companies have opted to adopt the critical mass policy in a bid to achieve gender balance, it has not been very effective per se. Instead it the policy has ended up making the organizations more masculine.
Therefore, unless properly considered and incorporated into the strategic planning of the company, targets might be achievable. This, therefore, means that the companies have to integrate the two. Just as they realized that at Harvard Business School that the critical mass alone cannot change the culture gender balancing has to be carefully handled otherwise a backlash is meant to happen to happen. Managers should try and ensure that both battling sexes are fairly assigned roles and rewarded appropriately. Additionally, they should be both involved in decision making and given mandates to lead most initiatives. That way there will be inclusivity