Each country has its own history and context when it comes to discrimination and each country has its own way to deal with it. The South African government has installed multiple policies to address and end discrimination in organizations; mostly direct or indirect affirmative action policies. In order for these policies to be successful, the government needs the cooperation of the organizations. But why would a manager cooperate? Why would a manager who, especially in these harsh times, finds it difficult to make enough profit, invest in pre-selected employees. Why would a manager go out of his way to make sure that each and every employee is happy to work for the organization? Because the government wants you to? No, the government can control who you hire (numbers), but equal treatment of employees is mostly about feelings and is therefore difficult to measure. So, what would be a rational reason for a manager to provide all employees with equal opportunities? Yes, profit! Last year I conducted a survey in South Africa for my master thesis. The goal of this survey was to find out how an organization that provides equal opportunities can benefit from doing so. As dependent variables in this survey organizational commitment and work motivation were chosen. These two variables have proven to be strongly linked to organizational success in many studies. An employee who is committed for instance will be a promoter of the organization and will not so easily move to another employer, which saves you the costs for finding and training new employees. Motivated employees will work harder and show you the behavior you dreamed of. So, if the employees’ perception of equal opportunities influences one or two of the dependent variables, it would be fair to say that equal treatment can be beneficial for the organization.
With the help of Cape Business News many organizations in the Cape Town region were asked to participate in the survey. Also organization in the regions of Durban and Johannesburg were asked to participate. With the sensitivity of the topic in mind, I was pleased to see that 8 organizations were willing to let their employees fill in the questionnaire and 285 completed questionnaires were returned. The data showed that indeed the employees’ perception of equal opportunities is an important predictor for organizational commitment and work motivation. In fact, 21,2 % of the variance in organizational commitment and 25,6 % of the variance in work motivation is caused by perceived equal opportunities. These huge effects are also the same for the four distinguished ethnic groups (Black Africans, Coloureds, Indians and Whites). These findings should interest the managers in South Africa, as they show that equal opportunities for employees can be beneficial for your organization. If you wish to know more about my survey or wish to receive my entire thesis, please send me an e-mail.
Pieter van Nuland MSc
Graduate at the Tilburg University (the Netherlands): Organisation of Cultural Diversity
pietervannuland@gmail.com
