Equality and Diversity

1. Identify and explain forms of diversity in the workplace and the reasons for its growth in recent years, defining inequality of opportunity and circumstances in which it is likely to arise.
2. Discuss the ways in which organisations can utilise the advantage of equal opportunities within a diverse business environment.
3. Devise organisational policies to promote equality of opportunity amongst different groups of workers and identify the potential problems of applying legislation within the diverse workforce.
4. Explain how organisational policies fit with the company’s HR strategy and its overall business strategy and demonstrate skills in developing these strategies to support the business in gaining competitive advantage.

Assignment Questions

Students are required to write a management report on managing diversity strategy to the CEO/Managing Director Southeastern Railways

TASK:

Investigate Southeastern Railway policies of equality and diversity within the workplace.

1. Your investigation should include the following factors:

 Information on the composition of Southeasten Railway workforce at its various levels,

 The organisation’s policies around recruitment of diverse groups,

 The ways in which the organisation supports and develops the diverse needs of its employees for example, flexible working, trainee schemes for women, talent and succession planning.

2. 2. Following your research, critically evaluate how these policies fit within the company’s overall business strategy. In your critical evaluation, you should decide on how successful their current HR initiatives in equality and diversity are in supporting their business strategy. For example, you may wish to look at the company’s efforts in becoming global or ways in which the company can have a more diverse senior management team.
3. Based on your critical evaluation, devise an effective strategy for Southeastern Railway that you consider will address some of the issues that you have identified. Your strategy should identify the following:

 Background of Southeastern Railway

 What the key issues are

 What you recommend Southeastern Railway should do

 Ways in which Southeastern Railway can address these issues with clear objectives, actions, resources required and their justification and timeframes to complete them in.

Assessment Guidance

Your report should include references to the appropriate academic textbooks, journals and websites. Care should be taken when consulting websites as they are not all equally authoritative (for example Wikipedia is not peer-reviewed; therefore is not considered an academic reference website). A minimum of five different academic references must be cited, but a well-researched report is likely to cite many more.

Below is an indicative structure for your report:

Title Page

Table of Contents

A list of all the chapters, sections, headings, and sub-headings. Appendices and Figures should be provided as well as all page numbers as clearly as possible.

Introduction

This should show that you have understood the brief and that you will cover everything required.

Findings and Analysis

• This is the substance of your report. The structure will vary depending on the material being presented. Headings and sub-headings should be used to indicate clearly the different sections.
• Charts, diagrams and tables can be used to reinforce your arguments, although it may be better to include the more complex ones as an appendix.

Conclusion and Recommendations

This provides an end to your report through a summary of the important points in your discussion. Remember not to include any new material here.

Reference List / Bibliography

The terms reference list and bibliography are sometimes used interchangeably, but here we define the terms as:

• Bibliography – a list of consulted readings, for example a list of textbook sources, that you have studied while composing your essay, but not specifically cited in the text
• Reference list – a list of cited sources.

Note that your report is to be submitted to the CEO/Managing Director of Southeastern Railway, therefore your report should be professional and evidence-based in its approach. Marks will be gained in your ability to critically analyse the organisation’s diversity strategy and evaluate its effectiveness in meeting the organisation’s business strategy. You must demonstrate robust justification of your analysis and your recommendations for improvement must be consistent with the outcomes of your analysis.