How has hiring women and minorities improved Xerox’s profitability?
Xerox has been one of the leading companies which favor women in their working condition. In essence, Xerox’s sensitivity to women’s needs was the key to its success in terms of employee performance and personal rating. The company has been able to make large profits because of the working conditions that favor the largest human labor, the women, and the minority. As compared to other American firms, Xerox is one of the company’s with higher flexibility in their human resource management. As evident by the statement of the company’s boss, the value of the employer’s work was actually not measured by the amount of time spent sitting at the office desk but rather on the value that the employee gave to her work.
The fundamentals of business provide that the major resource a business has is its human resource. In this sense, it does mean that even if the company has a vast resource in terms of its capital, it will not succeed without an effective human resource to align these necessary factors of production to the advantage of the firm. Xerox has achieved much success by improving its management of human resources as compared to other firms in the fortune 500 firms.
The improvement of the working conditions has therefore been the genesis of the company’s success. The origin of this important aspect of Xerox began by the hiring of the black minorities in the early 1970s; this made the company more flexible to social issues that affected the country at that time. Xerox, therefore, fostered its labor sensitive ambition to incorporate more women than any other company at that time. Improved sensitivity to women and minority issues also lead to more commitment and loyalty to the company (Phatak, 2009). This has been the major contributor to the profitability of Xerox; its employee’s commitment as a result of the company’s better working conditions.
What changes did Xerox make to become a more attractive employer for women and minorities?
There are a number of factors that made Xerox more attractive to minorities and women in the late 1960s and early 1970s to date. The most initial and fundamental factor which contributed to its attractiveness to women and the minority was the basic understanding of creating value out of its employees. This was evident when the boss slowly accepted to release its employees to go home earlier for supper and take their job home. This made employees not miss their homes super and at the same time continued with their office work. This aspect alone attracted more female employees because it meant that they could attend their home chores and their children earlier.
The other important aspect of Xerox that made it more attractive to women and the minority is its quick response to the employee’s fundamental needs such as medical attention for one of their employee’s children. In fact, a meeting could be called off for the employee’s child to be attended. This is a major sensitivity that the majority of the firms in the country lack, in essence, many firms will find it impossible to reschedule its meeting because of an employee’s illness let alone the employee’s child.
Xerox was also one of the pioneers of minority employment through a sensitivity scheme, its openness to minorities lead to its sensitivity to gender and thus more women were employees of the company. In this sense, the company was a caring home for the disadvantaged. This aspect not only promoted the company’s performance in the corporate world but also enhanced employee loyalty and thus less employee turnover (Stewart, 2008).
The other significant aspect of Xerox that encouraged especially women was the fact that the company allowed movements that advocated for more female promotions. One such movement that lobbied for women promotion that was formed in the early 1980s was the women alliance. More so, the flexibility of the company to accommodate employees inconveniencing location encouraged more women and the minority to join the company.
Do you think the emphasis on hiring and promoting women and minorities has been unfair to white men? Why or why not?
The hiring of women in Xerox has not been biased as regards the white men. If anything, the promotion of gender and minority sensitivity was initially fostered by the white men themselves at the realization of the significant labor percentage of women and the minority. In the early 1960s, there was a significant amount of racism and gender biases that affected blacks and women. This, therefore, meant that the workplaces in those years were especially occupied by the majority of white men. The other minority were segregated and discriminated against in the workplace during those days.
With the consideration of these evident past realities, it meant that white men had more places to work as compared to the black minority and the women. In this sense, the actions of Xerox only played an imperative and necessary role in leveling the playing ground in terms of the workplace. The management of Xerox took the advantage of the negative perception of these minorities to enhance its market niche through the tapping of the major workforce of that time. It is also not mentioned anywhere in the company’s policies that white men were not allowed to work in the company. The sensitivity was only concentrated on the disadvantaged group which did not, therefore, affect the working conditions of the white men.
References
Phatak, A., Bhagat, R., & Kashlak, R. (2009). Strategic human resource management: International HRM supplements. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Stewart, G., & Brown, K. (2008). Human resource management: 2010 custom edition. (1st ed). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.