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Workplace
Discrimination
And How You Deal With It
The
term workplace discrimination gets thrown around quite a bit in
corporate America today.
Although its meaning may be different
depending on the
person who is throwing it around.
So what is it? In truth, it’s a term that covers quite a bit
of ground.
An Overview
- Workplace or worker
discrimination describes just that – discrimination that takes place in
the workplace...against an employee.
- Usually, this involves the discrimination by
employers based on sex, religion, race, disability, age, and sexual
orientation.
- This can relate to the hiring/firing processes,
promotions, compensation, specific assignments, and
harassment.
- Workplace discrimination can
be either intentional or unintentional. Sometimes, large
companies achieve statistical discrimination even though they employ
seemingly unbiased performance-based hiring and firing practices.
What
an Employer Can Do
- As an employer, it is important
to keep your hiring, firing, and promotion practices based strictly on
performance.
- While this seems obvious, sometimes our
subtle
biases have an outcome in these processes over time.
- Because
of this, it can sometimes be a good idea to have independent parties
within a company be responsible for these practices, or at least have
input in them.
- Looking strictly at credentials without names
attached can be a good way to judge independently.
- For
especially large companies, proactive measures are sometimes needed to
comply with federal law.
- If your numbers are especially
skewed, it may be necessary to hire individuals from a certain
statistical category in order to achieve legal compliance.
- This is, in effect, backwards discrimination,
but it can be necessary
sometimes.
- As a smaller company, this type of
discrimination is harder to see. Often times, employers are
simply looking for the best person to fill a job in an effort to meet a
bottom line.
- Still, though, it is important to avoid such
things as discriminating based on age or pregnancy, two instances that
crop up often in a small-business setting.
What an
Employee Can Do
- As an employee, being the potential
victim of workplace discrimination is a tough spot to be in.
After all, if the competition for a promotion is close, how can you
claim you are discriminated against?
- This is especially tough
because it will be viewed as a slap in the face to your colleague who
did get the promotion, and can cause co-worker backlash.
- If
an employer decides to fire you, and you feel that the termination is a
result of discrimination against you for one of the aforementioned
reasons, then you should ask your employer to explain the reasoning
behind your termination.
- If you are unsatisfied with the
explanation, then you may want to file a report.
- The
procedure for this depends on the state you are employed in.
- If
you are an employee at a larger company, you may want to take your
claim to internal affairs, of go over the head of your current boss and
make your concerns known.
- Sometimes, this is enough to change
the discriminatory behavior. After all, no company desires
legal action stemming from workplace discrimination.
For further information on employee
rights, such as the workplace discrimination
section here, please be sure
to check out the following areas:
Similar to the employee rights, employers also have
responsibilities and rights. To learn more about this, check
out the employer
liability insurance section.
And don't forget to check out the various employment
background screening sections, especially if you are
interested in federal
government jobs.
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