Fairness and Diversity in Workplace: Toyota

By the advance of technology and society are getting more knowledge about rights and legal law. Discrimination, prejudice and stereotype are main issue either in society or among the organization. Diversity can be define as difference in various way, while in workplace diversity refers to the differences of people in ethnicity, age, gender, social status, religion and add on with sexual identity, social economic status and even education level (M. Janssens, C. Steyaert, 2013). According to Ferdman (1997), the value of fairness in diverse ethnicity is different as it can be view by different perspective such as associated value of the ethnic, oppurtunities given , discrimination , fair assessment and also view of person. As in our case study, Toyota are facing program due to the rapid gloabalization and diversity and fairness can help in solve the problem as through diversity program can help employees in oversea more understand towards the Toyota as there are many branches of Toyota in the world.

Toyota was origin in Japan and widely spread the branches all over the world, in year 1957, Toyota North America established first branch in USA( From 1957 to the 21st Century Toyota Moving Forward with America, 2013). As what state in the article, most of the workers in Toyota North America was American, this show that Toyota’s sign towards applying diversity into the organization by hiring employees other tha Japanese. In 2001, Toyota had announced on spending about 7.8 billion to undergo the diversity program in ( Toyota Motor Corporation Corporation, 2001). In the report Toyota’s 21st Century Diversity Stratergy (2001), Toyota had set a target for ten years diversity program with two principle; first, to continously improve in every aspect of business and follow by respect for people. In order to archieve the ten years target, Toyota had a series of action to apply fairness and diversity into the organizaition starting from recruit for employees, suppliers, dealers and advertising (Toyota Motor Coporation, 2013). Toyota had imply different types of stratergies into those four aspect of diversity. In recruitment, Toyota had recruited employees regarding of different gender, ethnicity , religion and working experience.

Other than that, Toyota did engage more money and business with diversed or minor supplier and dealers with different products by established two program Opportunity Exchange and the Tier II Sourcing Program (Supplier Diversity Fact Sheet, 2013).Toyota had planned to cooperate with African- American advertising company in promoting Toyota’s car as part of the diversity program because about 15 % of customers of Toyota are minors in USA (Toyota’s 21st Century Diversity Stratergy, 2001), By coorperate with minority advertising company helps Toyota in exploring the minority’s market in USA. Moreover, one of the competitors of Toyota in car manufacturer industry, Ford also applies similar diversity policies into the management like what Toyota did. Ford is one of the companies who practice diversity from the beginning of the company is established.

Ford had been provided the every employee equal opportunities in working in Ford regarding to different of religion, gender, age, ethnicity and background (Ford, 2013). Other than that Ford also provide opportunities for people with disabilities, different religious preference, women to work in Ford with the equal treatment. Ford Company had come out with vision as “diverse and inclusive environment.” By the implement of the vision, ford had five key elements in the vision which emphasize on leading the way, diverse workforce, respectful and inclusive, work environment, work life integration and external partnerships.

Despite of focusing diversity on employees, Ford also carry out diversity in suppliers and dealers. According to the Executive Reaction Report (2006), Ford had developed a inclusion and diversity plan into their policy in United Kingdom to improve the cooperate image among the competitors and by implement the idea of diversity and inclusion to get a different view of perspective among employees to contribute to the organization. The plan that Ford had implement including the assessment tool of Diversity Equality Assessment Review (DEAR), sponsorship of homosexual event, awareness workshop for all employees, hiring women engineer to design out product that make for women and maternity benefits for a full pay one year leave that later bring an impact on Ford’s product sales and help Ford in retenting talented employees.

In other hand, fairness in treating employee is also one of Toyota’s strength. In Toyota UK, the principles for the organization were fair treatment without any injustice and respect for others (Toyota, Equal Opportunities & Dignity at Work).According to The Equalities Review ( 2007), the definition for fairness means protects and promotes equal, real freedom and substantive opportunity to live in the ways people value and would choose, so that everyone can flourish.

Toyota carry out the plan for fairness, Toyota provided a booklet for all of the employees that mention about the equal oppurtunities and dignity at work which shows that Toyota’s mission to carry out a totally fair working environment for employee as what it said in the booklet.

“Members and applicants are treated fairly and equitably” (Toyota, Equal Opportunities & Dignity at Work)

According to Mehri,Meyer, and Runnels, (2003), by applying the concept of diversity into an organization, it will also help to improve fairness in the organization. Toyota did plan well for the diversity program as it helps Toyota in different aspect of the business by having different opportunites to cooperate with minorities and discover new ideas from the cooperation. Besides that, Toyota’s stratergy in diversity was practice by others company with some similarities.

This indicated that the stratergy of diversity not only apply on Toyota but as well as other industries and it prove to be a good stratergy that other companies are currently carry on with those stratergy. The hard work of Toyota paid as Toyota North America was ranked top 50 in Diversityin year 2012, awarded by DiversityInc (DiversityInc’, 2012). But Toyota maybe less focus on fairness and through enhancing Toyota’s diversity and fairness program, there are few suggestion such as treating employee equally, promote equal treatment to all employee and maybe can implant a guideline for diversity. Employee Training and Development

York ( 2009), mention that training and development is required for employee in different stages of working with the purpose to improve the employee performance and skills in work and hence increase the organization productivity in order to catch up on the trend. The sucessful training need to be provoke creativity and enhance the differences of the organization with others to the employees and keep on updating the new event or news (Vemić, 2007) . (Arthur Jr. W. , Bennett Jr. W., P. S. Edens and S. T. Bell, 2003) shows that the effectiveness of training are related to the different aspect of training given and (Obisi, 2011) mention that there are two types of training can be provided in organization such as on-job training and off-job training.

Toyota is a car manufacturing company which face new challenges every day as the advance of technology and globalization.By applying training and development to employee will prepare Toyota for the challenges that Toyota face.

Toyota (2013), had diveded training and development of employee into two parts, which consists of training facilities and developments in education. In training facilities, Toyota in Japan had established different centre for different training needs such as the needs for technical training and management training (Personnel-Related Development Training Facilities, 2013). Most of the training place located at Japan so Toyota North America had sign an agreement with Suffolk Community College to train workers of Toyota in United States (Toyota, 2010). There will be training provided for technician which consider as a off-job training in Suffolk Community College.

As for development of education in Toyota, Toyota had provided school for development and education for employee since 1938 and continue to practice it with a global development slogan.

“Jjikoutei kanketsu (maintaining quality in one’s own process)” ( Toyota, 2012)

Mc Donald is a famous fast food brand around the world. In order to provide the equal quality of service to the customers. As well as Toyota, Mc Donald USA had also provided training fro employees with four training program which consists of Hamburger University, global mobility, leadership development and internship (Mc.Donald, 2013).

In Hamburger University, the training is focus on restaurant services that emphasize on effecienicy, attitudes, cleaness and attitude toward customers, in the process the talent and leadership can be train meanwhile this kind of training is more towards to assessment center. Follow by the global mobility, Mc. Donald offer the chance for employee to experience on differnet place over the world to gan more experience and view on different place of Mc. Donald.

Other than that, the leadership development is provided and encouage every employee to deveelop leadership at any level of organization. Last but not least, the internship provided by Mc. Donald that help organization to train and develop potential employee for the organzation.

A studies conducted by Lorraine Dearden, Howard Reed and John Van Reenen, in United Kingdom with the increases of training by one percentage can increase the productivity by 0.6 percentage and 0.3 percentages for wages (L. Dearden, H. Reed &J. V. Reenen, 2006). This show that with the implication of trainig can help to increase the productivity and hence help to organization to gain profit. Toyota did take the advantage of training and it helps Toyota in staying competitive in car manufacture industry. After referencing Mc. Donald’s for the example for training and development, some advantages that Toyota can try to absob such as provide more training centres overseas as most of the training centres are located at Japan. Moreover, provide internship seems to be a good idea to implant in Toyota and follow by more on-th-job provided as it is more practical.

References

Arthur Jr. W. , Bennett Jr. W., P. S. Edens and S. T. Bell. (2003). Effectiveness of Training in Organizations: A Meta-Analysis of Design and Evaluation Features. Journal of Applied Psychology. Vol. 88, 234–245.DOI: 10.1037/0021-9010.88.2.234. C.Mehri, A.G. Meyer, M.B. Runnels. (2003). One Nation, Invisible: Th Use of Diversity Report Card to Promote Transparency, Accountability, and Workplace Fairness. DiversityInc. (2012). DiversityInc. Retrieved from Diversity Top 50 List: http://www.diversityinc.com/the-diversityinc-top-50-companies-for-diversity-2013/ Ferdman, B. (1997). Values About Fairness In The Ethnically Diverse Workplace. Business& the Contemporary World vol. 9, 191-208. Ford. (14 7, 2013). Diversity. Retrieved from Ford Go further: http://corporate.ford.com/careers/diversity/diversity-history-440p?&ccode