Deutsche Telekom: Women in the Workplace as Senior and Middle Managers

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Deutsche Telekom: Women in the Workplace as Senior and Middle Managers Principles of Management 3371 Diversity has many meanings but actually what does it mean when relating it to the workplace? Diversity not only refers to people but it also refers to other aspects such as language, past experiences, and abilities. Diversity is an important workforce consideration in many countries, outside of the United States. Deutsche Telekom is Europe’s largest telecommunication company, and it is attempting to decrease their company’s gender gap in leadership. To date women make up 12 percent of management and Deutsche Telekom’s goal is to increase this to 30 percent by the year 2015. Deutsche Telekom has gone so far as to introduce a gender quota, a term avoided by human resource managers within the United States but they are very committed to meeting this goal. Accomplishing this mission isn’t meant to take anything away from men and their capabilities but this is to also show that adding women to the mix provides a more diverse group of leaders and it is more beneficial to the organization to have such a distinct group of leaders. Having quotas are not recommended by many human resource experts because even though they can potentially help organizations become diverse in a short timeframe, they could potentially show discrimination against employees. Quotas often suggest that only a certain selection of personnel apply and by doing such a set number of minorities will be put into a position and this could potentially create a backlash from future applicants as well as existing employees who may feel that their qualifications are not as important as their gender or race. Hiring programs are favored over such practices because they tend to favor minorities when all other qualifications are equal. The use of female college graduates helps
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