Women-friendly human resource management practices and organisational commitment amongst female professionals

Shallone Munongo,David Pooe

doi:10.4102/ac.v21i1.954

Abstract

Orientation: Despite the growing feminisation of the global labour market, discrimination against women in the workplace remains entrenched. Such discrimination of women is largely attributed to human resources management (HRM) policies and management practices which are inherently masculine, designed by men for men.Research purpose: The aim of this study was to explore the influence of human resources management practices on the organisational commitment among female professionals in Zimbabwe.Motivation for the study: Notwithstanding the growing scholarly interest in the factors which can help retain women in the workplaces, there remains a paucity of studies from developing countries on how HRM practices influence female professionals’ organisational commitment in the workplace. Dearth in empirical literature is pronounced in Africa, particularly in a society such as Zimbabwe punctuated by patriarchy and an economy that has been depressed for over two decades.Research design, approach and method: The study adopted a quantitative research approach and employed a cross-sectional survey of 210 female professionals employed in the private and public sectors in Zimbabwe. Structural equation modelling was employed for data analysis using AMOS 25.0.Main findings: The results of the study revealed positive and significant relationships between women-friendly HR management practices and organisational commitment of female employees.Practical/managerial implications: Premised on these findings, the study recommended that it is imperative for HR management to implement non-discriminatory rewards systems, increase family-friendly policies, prioritise continuous training and charter clear progressive career development programs for the female employees.Contribution/value-add: This study provides managers with a better perspective of the predictors of organisational commitment among female professionals in an African context.

Highlights

Introduction and BackgroundDespite the growing feminisation of the global labour market, discrimination against women in the workplace remains entrenched
Based on the Social Exchange Theory (SET), this study proposes that the five human resource management (HRM) practices will be positively associated with affective commitment (AC), continuance commitment (CC) and normative commitment (NC) amongst female professionals in Zimbabwe
The objective of the study was to determine the effect of women-friendly HR management practices on organisational http://www.actacommercii.co.za

Summary

Introduction and Background

Despite the growing feminisation of the global labour market, discrimination against women in the workplace remains entrenched Such discrimination of women is largely attributed to human resource management (HRM) policies and practices, which are inherently masculine, designed by men for men (Ansari et al 2016; International Labour Organisation (ILO) 2016; Stamarski & Song Hing 2015). Consistent with literature, in this study HRM practices include fair rewards, supervisor support, opportunities for promotion, competence development programmes, empowerment, information sharing (Frederico 2015; Majid & Ibrahim 2017; Messner 2017) In their fairly recent study on the influence of organisational rewards (OR) on workplace trust and work engagement, Victor and Hoole (2017) found that OR are often used to enhance motivation or performance, attract and retain human capital, increase work engagement http://www.actacommercii.co.za and job satisfaction. Based on the deficiency of the prior research, this study attempts to enhance the understanding of the causal linkage between womenfriendly HR management practices and the organisational commitment of female professionals from an African country’s perspective

Literature review

Research methodology

Findings

Conclusion