DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT

Analysis of the Levi Strauss & Co's Workforce Diversity Management

Analysis of the Levi Strauss & Co's Workforce Diversity Management

Introduction

Levi's has been a major American brand that is well known for their quality of denim and cotton jeans globally. Levi Strauss main competitors in the jeans market have been Wrangler and Lee. In 1988, Levi Strauss's share of the jeans market was 24 percent, as compared to Wrangler's 7 percent and Lee's 12 percent. Since the 1980s, Levi Strauss worked diligently to claim the young urban market with its 501 jeans. Levi's 501 television commercials, created by the San Francisco agency, Foote, Cone & Belding, traded on the mystique of hipness with its use of blues music and young actors portraying city youth. Levi followed this with a series of ads for its 505 jeans (stressing comfort, not hipness) that sought to hold on to its share of the so-called lost “jean-eration” of baby boomers (Dvorak, 2010).

Environmental variables contribution to the 2011 position of Levi's

Businesses nowadays, regardless of their size and stature are immensely impacted by the global environment that surrounds them. On one hand, the global environment provides feasible conditions such as decreased barriers to entry, ease in trading, exchange of information however on the other hand, it also possesses some environmental variables with which, if not dealt adequately, can cause complicated setbacks as well. Similarly, Levi Strauss & Co. was also exposed to a number of environmental variables which altogether contributed to its current position in the year 2010 (McPherson, 2007). On one hand, the changing socio cultural factors such as individual's norms, beliefs and values, backed up with the rise of consumer level of education all led to a shift from casual clothing to fashion clothing (Raatma, 2004). Hearts which were once ruled by Levi's now seemed to want fashion items such as Armani, Lee brand, Calvin Klein and envisaged it as the “coolest jeans” (Raatma, 2004). On the other hand, economic factors are yet another cause of concern which led to the growing concern of the Levi's in 2010 (Bernstein, 2006). The rise in exchange rates and inflation, the growing government policies and legislation and the 2010 deficits in the balance of payment all contributed towards a halt in the growing success of Levi Strauss & Co. A company which was once at the pinnacle of its industry was now starting to face a downhill journey. Several factors can be highlighted as the main cause of the downfall; however, this paper will merely focus on the diversity management issues of the company. It has been observed by many researchers (Shaikh, 2012) that Levi Strauss & Co is a company comprising of diversified workforce in terms of gender, race, ethnicities, language etc. However, the shift of focus from effectively managing the diversified employees the company has shifted all attention away from diversity management towards sales and promotions of the products. This in accordance is affecting the position of the company, because employees bear less ...