BUS 6533 Module 2 Organizational Barrier Analysis Example

Part-Time, Night Shift and Out of the Network: Barriers to Advancement in an Iowa Grocery Chain

Student Name

American College of Education

BUS6533: Advancing Access and Engagement in Organizations

Module 2 Assignment

Instructor Name

July 23, 2029

Introduction

The review in the first module concluded that engagement depends on job resources and fair treatment and that unequal access to these conditions may explain differences in engagement among groups. This paper examines one form of access in one organization: the path from hourly store work to store management at Prairie Fresh Markets, a composite grocery chain whose details combine several regional retailers and have been altered. The chain operates 41 stores in Iowa and Nebraska and employs about 3,200 people. Its leaders say they promote from within, yet store managers report that few associates apply for leadership roles. The paper tests where the path narrows and why.

Defining the Access in Question

The path to management at the chain has four steps: associate, department lead, assistant store manager and store manager. Each step requires a recommendation from a manager and, for department lead and above, completion of a leadership course. Access is defined here as the real opportunity to move along this path, which depends on eligibility rules, the practical ability to meet requirements and the support needed to be considered. Differences in who advances can arise from any of these, so the analysis examines each rather than assuming a single cause.

Evidence Gathered

Three sources were used. HR records for 2027 and 2028 covered all promotions, applications and leadership course enrollments. Interviews with eleven store managers, chosen from urban, small-town and meatpacking-town stores, explored how they identify candidates. Six focus groups with 47 associates and department leads, two conducted in Spanish, asked about their interest in advancement and what made it harder. The chain's leadership approved the study on the condition that results be reported without identifying stores or individuals.

Where the Path Narrows

The records show a clear pattern. About 68 percent of store employees work part-time, but only 9 percent of promotions to department lead over two years went to part-time associates, and none of 52 promotions to assistant manager. Associates working mainly evening and overnight shifts made up 31 percent of the hourly workforce but 12 percent of leadership course enrollments. In the five stores where more than a third of employees speak Spanish as a first language, the share of department leads who were Spanish speakers was less than half their share of associates. Applications were not the issue: in focus groups, interest in advancement was common across groups.

Barrier One: Full-Time Status as an Unwritten Requirement

No policy requires full-time status for promotion, but managers described looking for associates who are always around and can be counted on for open shifts. Part-time associates, many of them students, parents or workers with second jobs, are less visible and less flexible by design. Lambert (2008) showed that employers' flexibility practices for hourly workers, such as variable hours and short-notice scheduling, transfer risk from the firm to employees. At the chain, the same practices also transfer opportunity: availability for unpredictable shifts becomes a de facto qualification for leadership that many associates cannot meet.

Barrier Two: Training Offered When Some Cannot Attend

The leadership course meets on weekday mornings at the Des Moines headquarters, up to a three-hour drive from some stores. Associates working overnight shifts or caring for children cannot easily attend, and those in distant stores must give up a day of pay unless their manager approves travel time. The course materials and assessment are in English only. These design choices were made for convenience, not to exclude, but they narrow access for night workers, distant stores and Spanish speakers, matching the enrollment gaps in the records.

Barrier Three: Recommendations Through Informal Networks

Every step requires a manager's recommendation, and managers said they recommend people they know and trust. Ibarra (1992) found in a study of an advertising firm that people's networks tended to form with similar others and that some groups gained fewer career benefits from their networks than others. At the chain, managers mostly work day shifts and speak English, so their informal ties form more readily with day-shift, English-speaking associates. Castilla (2008) found in a large firm that employees who received the same performance ratings did not receive equal rewards, showing that discretion after formal evaluation can reproduce gaps. Recommendations at the chain operate with similar discretion and no review.

Barrier Four: Signals of Belonging

Focus groups added a less visible barrier. Several Spanish-speaking associates said they had never seen a leader who spoke Spanish outside one store, and several overnight workers said they assumed leadership roles were for day staff. Shore et al. (2011) described inclusion as the experience of being treated as an insider while being allowed to remain oneself, balancing belonging and uniqueness. Nishii (2013) found that a climate of inclusion reduced conflict and its harms in gender-diverse groups. When some groups see no one like themselves advance, they reasonably conclude the path is not meant for them, which reduces applications from people who are otherwise interested.

Practices or Preferences?

A rival explanation is that part-time and overnight associates simply prefer not to advance. The focus groups do not support this: most participants in every group expressed interest, and several had asked about the leadership course without being enrolled. Some associates do prefer their current schedules, and any solution should respect that choice. But the records and interviews indicate that the main barriers lie in organizational practices: unwritten availability expectations, training design, discretionary recommendations and the absence of visible role models.

What Managers Said About Their Choices

The manager interviews also show that the barriers persist without ill intent. Several managers said they wanted more diverse leads but did not know how to identify candidates on shifts they rarely worked. Two had recommended part-time associates who then could not attend the course. One manager in a meatpacking town had begun pairing Spanish-speaking associates with a bilingual lead for informal coaching and had promoted two of them. These accounts suggest managers would use better tools if the chain provided them.

Links to Engagement

These barriers likely affect engagement as well as advancement. In job demands-resources terms, development opportunities and supervisor support are resources, and associates with less access to them should be expected to report lower engagement. The chain's own pulse survey shows lower scores on the item about growth opportunities among part-time and overnight staff. The next module will measure engagement with a validated instrument to test whether the access gaps identified here correspond to engagement gaps.

Limitations

The analysis uses two years of records and a limited number of interviews and focus groups, and participants who volunteered may differ from others. Spanish-speaking status was estimated from store records of language preference, which are incomplete. Other explanations, such as differences in prior experience, remain possible, although managers did not describe experience as the main factor in their recommendations.

Conclusion

At Prairie Fresh Markets, the path from associate to manager narrows for part-time associates, overnight workers and Spanish speakers. Four barriers explain the pattern: availability expectations that act as unwritten requirements, a leadership course scheduled and written for some employees but not others, recommendations that run through informal networks and the absence of visible role models. These barriers lie in practices rather than in individual preferences. The next module will measure whether they are associated with differences in engagement.

References

Castilla, E. J. (2008). Gender, race, and meritocracy in organizational careers. American Journal of Sociology, 113(6), 1479-1526. https://doi.org/10.1086/588738

Ibarra, H. (1992). Homophily and differential returns: Sex differences in network structure and access in an advertising firm. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37(3), 422-447. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393451

Lambert, S. J. (2008). Passing the buck: Labor flexibility practices that transfer risk onto hourly workers. Human Relations, 61(9), 1203-1227. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726708094910

Nishii, L. H. (2013). The benefits of climate for inclusion for gender-diverse groups. Academy of Management Journal, 56(6), 1754-1774. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2009.0823

Shore, L. M., Randel, A. E., Chung, B. G., Dean, M. A., Holcombe Ehrhart, K., & Singh, G. (2011). Inclusion and diversity in work groups: A review and model for future research. Journal of Management, 37(4), 1262-1289. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206310385943