Gender Equality Within Workplace

Question

Task:
You are required to prepare a detailed and well-researched report discussing about the impact of gender equality within workplace. Please create a mind map to represent the key considerations that you need to be taken into account to gather primary research data, using a focus group approach.

Answer

Introduction
Gender equality in the workplace is associated with the development of national productivity and encourages economic growth. The execution of gender equality and diversity in the workplace motivates the business to continuously achieve success and encourages female employees to develop better career opportunities (Chang and Milkman, 2020). In the process of inspecting genders equality within the workplaces, it is essential to collect data from the focus groups. The use of both primary quantitative and qualitative data is determined to be essential in fetching better understating about the existing gender equality within the actual business environment. In this study, the use of the well-connected mind map is used to reflect the primary data collection method so that the authentic data about genders equality within the workplace can be extracted in an effective manner.

Mind map for data collection from focus group

Figure 1: Mind map

(Source: Self-developed)

The above diagrams represent the well collected and interlinked methods of collecting the primary data. The process of collecting the primary evidence needs to be clear so that the smooth collection of facts is possible. This ensures the authenticity of the research to meet the determined aims and objectives and thus ensure success without any hurdle (Zubaidah et al., 2017). As evident from the mind map, both primary quantitative and qualitative data will be done to understand gender equality within the workplace. The use of mind maps has developed a vivid idea about the data collection methods.

Analysis of the mind map
Observation: It is a must for the researcher to observe the focused group. Observation provides a better idea about the data evaluation and engages the understandings. In this context, the development of the idea about gender equality along with the opportunities to the female’s employees will be inspected by visiting the workplaces and even inspecting the annual reports of the respected companies. As the research aims to focus on the retail business, so three retail bases organizations, namely Tesco, Asda and Morison, will be observed, and the idea about their work culture will be gathered.

Pilot survey: Before collecting data, a small survey of a few interested employees in the selected organization will be conducted. This will allow the researcher to develop an idea about the process of data collection and will act as the stage of preparing before framing the questionnaire and the survey schedules for the actual data collection process. Flynn et al. (2018) stated that a pilot survey is helpful in understanding the focused group better and, at the same time, allow the researchers to better approaches of data collections.

Collection of primary quantitative data: The selection of the focus group is much in this case. As mentioned in the mind map, the framing of the questionnaires will be done. The use of the 15 close-ended questions will be done to surrey 150 employees’ working in the selected retail business of the UK. 50 employees from each Tesco, ASDA and Morison will be taken into consideration for this survey. The use of the Google Form will be done so that the data collected can be done within a limited time period. The links of the form will be sent to the respondent through email after getting their consent (Nayak et al., 2019). The use of simple close-ended questions on gender equality will be multiple options will be done. The respondent will be given an option to skip the question if they find it uncomfortable in answer. As per the Data Protection Act 2010, the data will be kept confidential, and the identity of the respondents will not be revealed.

Collection of primary qualitative data: The extraction of qualitative data is also a must in the case of primary surveys. In this research, the interview of the 3 managers, each from the selected retail business, will be done. In the process of collecting the data through interviews, a proper appointment will be taken from the managers at their convenience. The use of telephonic interviews will be done considering the pandemic situation. Proper precaution will be taken to record the call so that the data extraction without any confusion can be conducted in the discussion sections. The entire data collection through the interview will be done in a generic way in which one question will lead to the other. Use 5 broad questions will be done on gender equality in the workplaces and how they feel it is productive in developing a better working environment for the employees. The work experiences, as well as the personal opinion of the managers, will be inspected for a better understating of the concepts of gender equality and its benefits to the workplace.

The primary data collection methods become very complex as selecting the focus group and thus collecting data in a well-planned manner is a very confusing task (Raj, 2020). Thus, the representation of the steps essential for the primary data collection using a mind map has been effective in reflecting a clear idea about the different methods that will be considered.

Conclusion
The collection of the primary quantitative and qualitative data is helpful in portraying the actual business environment and the prevailing gender equality. The focus groups are staff of Tesco, Asda and Morrison and managers of the respective companies. The complex data collection process has been simplified using the mind map, and therefore better transparency for the researcher is developed about the producers that need to adopt in collecting authentic data for the evaluation of gender equality. The concept of gender equality is a very talked-about topic, and thus the framing of well commented and organized questioners and survey schedule is needed. The mind map is helpful in limiting confusion in data collection.

Reference list
Chang, E.H. and Milkman, K.L., 2020. Improving decisions that affect gender equality in the workplace. Organizational Dynamics, 49(1), p.100709.

Flynn, R., Albrecht, L. and Scott, S.D., 2018. Two approaches to focus group data collection for qualitative health research: Maximizing resources and data quality. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 17(1), p.1609406917750781.

Nayak, M.S.D.P. and Narayan, K.A., 2019. Strengths and weaknesses of online surveys. Technology, 6, p.7.

Raj, A., 2020. Chapter-9 Data Collection Methods in Social Science. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY, p.113.

Zubaidah, S., Fuad, N.M., Mahanal, S. and Suarsini, E., 2017. Improving creative thinking skills of students through differentiated science inquiry integrated with a mind map. Journal of Turkish Science Education, 14(4), pp.77-91.