Discrimination In The Workplace: Managing Diversity And Employee Potential

Reports on Managing Diversity in the Workplace

Post 1

Discrimination in the Workplace 

Reports from the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and the Trade Union Council (TUC) suggest promoting diversity in the workplace need not be complex, expensive or a legal battleground if both senior management and employees are committed to bring about change. Organizations need to unlock the potential of ALL to form a true representation of the workforce. And with the current trend of economic uncertainty and skill shortages in labor markets businesses need to focus more on employee potential rather than employee classification through the evaluation of personal traits, Pilbeam & Corbridge (2010). For employee interaction it’s about understanding, acceptance and open mindedness toward one another, irrespective of color, creed, sexual orientation, gender, disability or age.

Discrimination legislation has made it illegal to discriminate in recruitment selection, access to occupational education and promotion on the basis of age, with the exception of where different treatment can be demonstrably vindicated to reach a legitimate aim and in such cases persuasive ancillary evidence is required to validate age qualification is essential. The legislation is designed to protect older employees from demotion, redundancy or harassment, harassment can surface from invasive comments relating to a persons age when the comments are frequent enough to cause offense or create a hostile work environment, Riach (2009). Managing diversity can be a complex, time-consuming activity and in particular the difficulty in imposing standard policies to curb age discrimination across the company due to the very nature of organizational diversity. Businesses are embedded with employee ideals, beliefs, opinions and worldviews, to ensure these presumptions don’t lead to unequal ordysfunctional consequences managers are required to get involved in daily employee interactions to gain an understanding of how social norms are applied and can lead to age inequality. To offset any negative prejudice where high levels of age diversity exist business leaders need to implement two managerial mediation strategies. Firstly, managers need to be aware they are role models and their perceptions and behavior directly impact the inequality discrimination climate in the workplace, they need behavior-based instruction on how to deal with age inequality stereotypes and how to reduce the potential age related conflict in an age diverse workforce. And secondly, by implementing pro-diversity HR policies and providing employee workshops and training it sends a strong message to the workforce the company is committed to supporting diversity, Kunze, Boehm & Bruch (2013).

Another area for concern is sexual harassment and though reputable companies and their managers go to great lengths to ensure it wont be tolerated the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) still reports it receives up to fifteen thousand complaints on a yearly basis. Sexual harassment can also be a complex issue; it’s subjective because it’s determined by the victim and what one person may find acceptable another may see as sexual harassment as people recognize and observe the circumstances differently, Tyner & Clinton (2010). Scholars from a series of studies exposed gender distinctions existing in the assessment of sexual behavior at work. The general findings are that women perceive sexual behavior at work as a form of sexual harassment and for the most part men do not. What makes this situation unique is sexual behavior viewed in a negative context by women may be viewed in favorable context by men, amounting to fewer complaints being filed by men. The implications of these gender disparities in sensitivity to sexual overtures at work is that males are more prone to induce sexual behavior leading to more complaints by women, as women are not as likely to see such behavior as suitable, Konrad & Gutek (1986).

Legislation to Prevent Discrimination in the Workplace

In light of the complex issues on discrimination what’s important is that people are treated fairly and with respect. A socially responsible organization will ensure all its employees, managers included, treat each other in a way that upholds the organizations positive values. Discrimination in the workplace irrespective of what form it takes makes it difficult for people to function or may exclude people from organization all together, resulting in the waste of employee potential and damage to the company, it hampers the recruitment process and may cause existing personnel to leave and file claims that result in loss of revenue, Watkins (2013), therefore the moral obligation of the company is to ensure ALL employees have the opportunity to pursue a career in the absence of discrimination.

Post 2

One of the important functions of Human Resource Function is to ensure that employees are not discriminated at work place. Human Resource managers aim to achieve this objective by developing diverse workplace where employees from different backgrounds can work together. One of the major disadvantages of discrimination at workplace is that it creates the divide among the employees. It can be said that discrimination could cause major unrest among employees. (Avraham & Logue, 2013) highlighted that it can ultimately be a roadblock for employee development and productivity and consequently the progress and growth of organizations could get suffered. The discrimination could be both direct and indirect in nature. It is important that employer should develop strategies and policies that could push back both direct and indirect discrimination. Two major discrimination laws can be discussed as follows:

Equality act 2010

The Equality Act came into force from October 2010 providing a modern, single legal framework with clear, streamlined law to more effectively tackle disadvantage and discrimination. The objective of this act was to ensure that discrimination among employees on the basis of sex, religion, caste etc. can be avoided.  This law is treated as an important discrimination law because with this law employers become more vigil about the discrimination at work place. This law is intended to protect employees against any sort of discrimination at work place. This law also provided an opportunity to female employees to grow and develop. This law states that both men and women should be given equal payment for the same amount of work. Likewise, this law states that employer should not establish biasness in their decision based on the background of employees.

I would say that this law is a very important law of society. This law has provided strength to the relationship of employees and employer. This law is an integral part of organizations and it is important that all employers should try to establish this law. In any ways, this law does not restrict the manager’s ability to manage. It is important that manager should be able to think beyond this law to develop a culture where employees can work without any discrimination.

Sex Discrimination act (1975)

The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which protected men and women from discrimination on the grounds of sex or marital status. This law is an important law as it established the way of equal rights for both men and women. As far as the effectiveness of this law is considered, I would say that this law is effective to ensure that organizations do not discriminate on the basis of gender. It is the first step to avoid discrimination at workplace (Harbord, 2013).

Sexual Harassment and Gender Views in the Workplace

The above two laws are intended to protect both employees and employers. Primarily, these laws were developed to safeguard the rights of employees. These laws do places certain terms and conditions for employers and managers but in any case these laws should not restrict the ability of managers to manage employees. In my organizations both of these laws provides a platform for employers to manage effectively and these laws also increases the confidence of employees. I can say that these laws have helped my organizations and the life of managers have also improved with the establishment of these laws.

Post 3

“The most significant feature of this decade is change”(Revans, 1966, p93).  Individuals across the globe are becoming always more inter-related and organisations must adventure themselves within national boundaries to obtain competitive advantage through diversity.  As Back (1997) writes “popularised in the late nineteenth century, fish and chips, was the result of the fusion of French styles of preparing fried potatoes and an East European Jewish tradition for frying fish”.  “It is critical importance for organisations to pay attention to how they manage change”(Child, 2005, p292). “Through understanding the impact of culture on team climate, performance can be improved” (Symons, 2007, p3).    

Better through Diversity

“The notions of cross-cultural management became a major theme in management within the rise of globalisation”(Back, 1997, p10).  Within today’s cultural diversity, the manager’s job is always tougher.  “Cultural differences can create substantial obstacles to effective teamwork – but these may be subtle and difficult to recognise until significant damage has already been done.  The good news is that cultural challenges are manageable” (Brett et al, 2006).  If successfully managed, organisations can actually take advantage from such diversity and broaden the organisation’s strategic perspective, complete successful international negotiations for possible joint ventures, learn new ideas and knowledge from the global talent acquired and not only limited to domestic talent pools.

Manager’s responsibilities and Culture Diversity

Cultural diversity can be both an asset and a liability always depending on managers’ ability to successfully manage such circumstances.  Today’s manager’s job involves various emerging responsibilities including avoiding discrimination towards the workforce, and laws are there to regulate such processes to protect employees and seek fairness.  Accepting cultural diversity means supporting different values and traditions.  These ways of living are supported by human rights frameworks and discrimination laws.  Discrimination on the grounds of age, gender, culture, religion, disability and ethnicity can affect individuals mentally and physically which will eventually reflect on performance of existing employees.  Within today’s globalised economy those individuals most affected are by race-based discrimination which is implemented through such cultural diversity especially Muslims, Asian and those having African backgrounds.  This is mainly caused by ethnocentrism where one’s culture is seen superior than the other. 

Gender and Equal Opportunity

“Gender discrimination can be defined as an act of treating differently the opposite sex”(Bratton & Gold, 1999, p190).  Equality can be seen as shared responsibilities and equal participation involving both sexes in various managerial processes as decision making, promotions and remuneration.  Everyone should be treated equally regarding their sex and all individuals should have the opportunity to exercise their rights.  It is important to promote a business environment that encourages equality.  For some time women were not treated equally especially when it came to promotions, remunerations and recruitment.  It is important that managers use empowerment within all workforces to take the best out of the resources.  Despite today’s regulations some unfairness is still seen in some scenarios.  Most employers especially within the private sector might not employ young women who still have to get married and eventually be pregnant.  Hence they opt for the best next thing as to choose men to avoid time and money.   

The Role of Human Resource Managers in Managing Workplace Discrimination

Racial Discrimination

“Racial discrimination can be defined as treating differently the opposite race because belonging to a different national origin, religion or colour”(Bratton & Gold, 1999, p193).  Within the rise of globalised business environments and cultural diversity, different races can easily be found working under the same roof.  This is very difficult to understand and explain why the dominant or ruling race tries to discriminate towards the other group.  It can be simply fear of sharing power as one group might have some sort of superiority complex and ignorance in the same time towards other values and religions.  History has shown us great examples of racial discrimination as hostilities, slave trade and colonialism.  Two great films that one could watch regarding this kind of discrimination are Selma and Invictus, where black people have been severely treated unfair. 

Final Thoughts

Within today’s emerging cultural diversity it is the responsibility of any successful manager to be able to study and analyse different cultures, values and societies that are or might be working with in order to avoid problems and obtain the desired strategic results.  It is any managers’ job to use such laws in order to protect most of all themselves and the organisation concerned.  These laws apart from being beneficial to employees should also be used effectively by organisations by drawing up affirmative action plans which ensure compliance with the law.

Comment –

The post discuss about the discrimination done in the workplace by the managers or the employees. The information given in post is appropriate in explaining the discrimination but there is lack of live evidence in the post (Sargeant, 2006). If writer of the post would have related any live evidence or incident with their impact on organization strategies, policies and culture, the post would look more impressive and also help the reader in understanding the objective of the post. Writer has also not mentioned any law regarding the discrimination in his post.

The writer of the post should explain the effect of discrimination in relation to employee, organization as well as the strategies and organizational culture i.e. the impact on these three. Real evidence or any example would help reader of the post easily understand the post if he read in hurry also (Paludi, Paludi and DeSouza, 2011). For example – for women harassment in workplace the writer should narrate an incidence of Infosys Company in which women was harassed mentally and physically by her lead. The real incidence of any organization with its impact on organization and employees can be given by writer in relation to post topic.

Comment –

In post 2 writer explains the importance of human resource in an organization but in this post also writer has not mentioned any real example i.e. step taken against discrimination by any organization hr. The advantages and disadvantages mentioned in the post are also not complete. The information given by the writer in two acts is appropriate but there are several other acts regarding discrimination in workplace which writer has not mentioned.

The writer in post have only mentioned two act i.e. Equality act 2010 and sex discrimination act 1975 but there are other acts also will work on workplace discrimination(Eeoc.gov, 2015). For example the other acts which writer should explain are as –

• New Jersey’s Law against discrimination (LAD)
• Protection from harassment act 1997
• Criminal Justice and Public order Act 1994
• Administration of Justice Act 1970
• The age discrimination in Employment act of 1967(ADEA).

Writer should try to explain all above mentioned act in the post with proper information so that the reader can obtain maximum information regarding the topic.

Comment –

The post 3 explains the changes which an organization makes in their culture, style of working and etc. There are several grammatical and spelling mistakes in the post which make difficult for reader in understanding the post (Sathyendran, 2014). The basic mistake which is present in all post is explaining information without any live incidence or example. By explaining with the help of expamle it will be easily for both writer as well as reader.

Writer should try to explain in own words rather than writing what other authors say regarding the topic. The process or steps used in managing the changes in organization should be explained in the post by writer to make it clearer. For example the manager’s responsibilities and culture diversity should be explained as the employees of the organization belong to different culture and origin with their own beliefs and thoughts so to manage them all managers responsibility should be described.

References

Eeoc.gov, (2015). Laws Enforced by EEOC. [online] Available at: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/index.cfm [Accessed 3 Mar. 2015].

Paludi, M., Paludi, C. and DeSouza, E. (2011). Praeger handbook on understanding and preventing workplace discrimination. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Praeger.

Sargeant, M. (2006). Age discrimination in employment. Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate.

Sathyendran, N. (2014). A real problem in the IT field. [online] The Hindu. Available at: https://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/a-real-problem-in-the-it-field/article6037263.ece [Accessed 3 Mar. 2015].