Discrimination can take various forms, including racism, ethnicity, age, gender, and religion, among others. Regardless of how hard we try to deny its presence, bigotry has infiltrated our societies and planted roots in families, workplaces, and schools. Yet, efforts to educate individuals about the negative effects of discrimination have not been successful. Managers and other leaders are encouraged to make choices fairly in the workplace. They are instructed to base their decisions on qualifications rather than favoritism. The following discussion will concentrate on discrimination in corporate and company management. First, it will define discrimination and the type of discrimination that workers and managers may face in the workplace. Thereafter, it will consider the various laws of management pertaining to discrimination. Solutions to the various types of discrimination will also be provided.
Objectives
The primary goal of this paper is to help one understand the various forms of discrimination experienced in the workplace, and how the management may handle the different scenarios. Also, the discussion will outline the contents of the Equality Act 2010 and attempt to discuss its contents as well as whom it targets. As we shall see, the contents of the Equality Act 2010 and the primary reason behind its formation. Other than the Equality Act, this paper will discuss the various ways in which equality and diversity may be encouraged and promoted in the different areas of work. It will them provide ways that may be used to create awareness of discrimination and their effectiveness.
Introduction
As stated earlier, discrimination comes in several forms, with the most common ones being racism and nepotism (Fredman, 2011, p.63). In most places of work, the workers are not selected based on their qualification, rather on discriminative basis. In family businesses, for example, it is common for the managerial posts to be passed onto the child, whether or not they are not capable of handling the position. Most companies that follow this norm collapse eventually. This is mainly because the children whom management is passed onto have little information regarding the company, thus end up mishandling the company, and an eventual failure of such companies. Other than nepotism, those who manage to bribe their way into the luxurious positions also fall in the bracket of discrimination.
According to a study carried out by Hiscox in 2014, 11.7% of the companies stand a chance of being reported for discrimination by their employees (Simpson, 2015). The reasons of discrimination, however, vary from one organization to another. For example, technological-oriented companies have a tendency of employing mostly Asians as they are considered geniuses. Other than the hiring process, workers may be discriminated during dismissal, training, promotions and even payments and benefits. The undying reasons differ from simple hatred to other reasons previously stated.
Due to several complaints from residents in the United Kingdom, the issue of discrimination in the workplaces had to be taken seriously (Kaptein, 2012, p.43). Although companies want the best employees for themselves, most people seeking employment found the hiring process quite discriminative. Even those who were qualified for particular positions were locked out due to reasons such as race or family history. In some instances, workers were laid off without a concrete reason. It is customary when a company wants to make budget cuts, to lay off some of their workers (Fredman, 2011, p.63). The workers need to be laid off in accordance with their performance. This would mean that the lazy employees would suffer first. However, this was not always the case; in most events, the most industrious ones were laid off as they had no one to speak for them.
With several cases in court on employee discrimination and harassment, the legislature saw a need to draft laws which would help protect the workers against the various forms of discrimination. In addition to the discrimination laws of the European Union, the UK drafted out the Equality Act 2010 (Kaptein, 2012, p.43). This Act was meant to protect the marital status and gender of the employees. Aside from these, the law also covered matters of resigning, pregnancy and maternal health and disability. Each organization was expected to obtain a copy of the act and strictly adhere to it, so as to enhance fairness. Any violation of these laws would result in a hefty punishment. Also, the law would protect all employees regardless of whether they were in private or public sectors.
With the Act in place, people were entitled to apply for jobs and partake in interviews as long as they had the necessary qualifications regardless of their gender or race. The Act combined nine pieces of legislation, all involved different types of discrimination protective laws. This Act was drafted on October 1st, 2010, (Robinson, 2013, p.51) to ensure one framework that would enhance the protection of human rights in the workplace while providing equal opportunities for people.
The act also put in place measures to ensure that people adhere to the set policies to the latter. Hiscox later did another research to determine the level of discrimination in various organizations (Simpson, 2015). The research showed that the discrimination slightly decreased in comparison to the previous statistics. However, some employees still felt that the workplace was not as free as they expected. Although job opportunities are awarded equally, most people feel insecure in their places of work differences of gender, religion or even race.
Literature Review
Cambridge Dictionary defines discrimination as treating a person or a given group of individuals in a worse manner in comparison to the rest of the people. This peculiar treatment may be due to sexuality, gender, race, disability or any other feature that may make a person different from the majority of the people. Different authors have expounded on this definition according to their understanding. Conley, Wright, and Conley, (2016, p.9) have the same take on discrimination as that of Cambridge Dictionary. He goes ahead to divide discrimination into two, direct and indirect discrimination (Conley, Wright and Conley, 2016, p.14). They define direct discrimination as a situation where one employee is treated differently from the others. Indirect discrimination, on the other hand, happens where the rules of the company adversely affect one group of people favouring the rest. They further explain that direct discrimination cannot be justified with the existing rules whereas indirect can be easily argued with the laws.
According to Conley, Wright, and Conley, (2016, p.13) the discrimination law was constructed around five major principles. The first principle is that all workers should not be subjected to direct or indirect discrimination. The second principle is that no worker should be harassed in the work place. The third one is that all workers must be treated equally without any form of bias. The fourth one workers should not be exposed to any type of victimization. The final principle is that the employer should ensure equal and suitable adjustments to all employees. Fredman, (2011, p.233) also outlines the same principles that led to the drafting of the discrimination law. Fredman, (2011, p.231) explain that these principles can be considered as the motives behind this Act. Fredman, (2011, p.109) further says that the scope of discrimination depends on an individual’s quality. According to her, an individual will feel discriminated against if the laws prevent a person from expressing themselves freely. Robinson, J.D (2013, p.3) differs with this concept; instead, he claims that one feels discriminated against when they feel that they are not getting equal treatment as their fellow workmates.
Nonetheless, the concept of discrimination in the workplace remains the same in all organizations. Studying various literally work, one realizes that the greatest form of discrimination that led to the drafting of this act was chauvinism and racial discrimination. Before this law came into play, when a man and woman applied for a tasking job, the man had a greater opportunity of getting the job simply because of his gender (Williams and Dellinger 2010, p.11). Most employers give gender preference to actual qualification when hiring workers. Females were mostly considered for jobs such as housekeeping, baby-sitting, and career in the food industry. Williams and Dellinger (2010, p.19) claims that both men and women must be given equal opportunities when it comes to hiring since experience does not come with gender.
In their book, Whitley and Kite (2016, p.363), raises concern on the fact that the first laws against discrimination were passed more than 50 years ago, yet employees still suffer from a great deal of discrimination. Williams and Dellinger (2010, p.7), argues that every individual needs to take part in fighting discrimination. As long as the struggle is one-sided, discrimination is bound to live with us.
Healey (2014, p.22) enlighten their readers on the fact that skills do not come with race or gender, rather experience. Also, they encourage they highlight the fact that the disabled people, just like the abled, are able to perform various tasks. The Equality Act provided a chance for the disabled people to get employment in various companies as long as they met the qualifications. Nevertheless, most companies still silently discriminate people with disabilities in that they consider them an unproductive.
Williams and Dellinger (2010, p.8), primarily focus gender discrimination. They attempt to enlighten the reader on the different forms of gender discrimination experienced in the work place. They conquer with Healey (2014, p.22) in that gender has nothing to do with experience. In addition, they insist on employers considering the background of an individual prior to offering a job.
Methodology
This main aim of this discussion was to understand the various types of discrimination experienced in the workplace and understand the contents of the Equality Act 2010. To do this, effectively, the discussion will study different kinds of literature from different authors who have explored the various forms of discrimination. Also, it will consider two articles in particular that focus on the discrimination in the work place. These articles are set in the United Kingdom. Although the whole world experiences discrimination, our main focus will be the UK. This is because the Equality Act 2010 was drafted to reduce discrimination in the UK. Also, we shall consider different statistics, before and after the Act became effective.
As stated earlier, the Equality Act was a combination of several legislations. We will also discuss why these legislations were merged into one document. This Act helped several organizations in terms of employment opportunities. We will consider the works of various authors to see the extent to which the Act has been effected and how much effort still needs to be put to ensure there is no discrimination. To understand this properly, we will use the scenario of a technologically oriented company with mixed race workers. We will need to consider the strengths and the weaknesses of the employees, then as management try to come up with methods of lowering the rate of discrimination.
Also, we will consider various ways that management may employ to ensure that their employees work in comfortable environments. As we consider this, we shall also consider the negative impacts of discrimination in the work place. As we shall see, discrimination provides a hostile environment for proper work output. It instils fear in the workers thus lowering output. As such, we will consider the various solutions provided by various authors which may help lower the rate of discrimination. From the findings, we will come up with our solutions on how to lower discrimination in workplaces.
Findings, Analysis and Discussion
The extent to which discrimination has sunk into the organizations is surprisingly high in the United Kingdom, and the world as a whole. According to Ozeren, 2014 (p.1205), the greatest form of discrimination in organizations is gender discrimination. According to the Gender Recognition Act 2004, the UK considers male, female and transgender as legal sexes. However, citizens have a different take on this matter. Most people in the managerial posts do not like employing bisexual or homosexual people in their organizations. Most managers believe that gays, lesbians, bisexual and trans-genders (GLBT), taint the names of their organizations. As such, they try to avoid hiring such people. Ozeren (2014, p.1207) states that this group is considered the least among the workforce. Due to this, most of them do not come out to their workmates as they are afraid of losing their jobs.
Aside from gender discrimination, physical bullying and harassment are also common in some work places. Mostly, these types of discrimination are employee to employee. Okechukwu et al. 2013 (p.577) claim that there are employees who feel superior to others thus harassing them. In such situations, the management needs to be keen and ensure equal and fair treatment by the employees. The management should also promote a proper environment in which no member should feel the need of harassing other members.
The Equality Act has taken into consideration all forms of discrimination including gender, physical disability, race and also age. Okechukwu et al. (2013, p.578) claims that some organizations do not often hire as they believe that old is gold. To them, older people have more experience thus retain them for long even after their retirement age. The act was put in place to ensure that young and fresh minds also get a chance of employment and thus build their lives.
Another common yet unspoken form of discrimination is on the basis of religion. As long as a company’s goal is not religious based, the management should ensure they hire across all religious backgrounds. Also, the management need not suppress people due to their religious beliefs. Being a non-religious state, UK allows each citizen to express their religious freedom. Also, the management should not bully their employees into specific religious backgrounds.
Consider a technology oriented company that is set to develop various software. Such a company needs to focus on the intelligence of employees before any other factor. For the company to succeed, they need to hire people with skills and knowledge in computers. Once the company starts to filter out employees discriminatively, then it will not get the best programmers and software, engineers. The company must overlook gender and race and select its workers wisely. Also, it needs to be flexible, since the workers will not be of the same religious background and age. Once it overlooks these factors, the company will have the best workers and have a positive performance.
A discrimination free work environment promotes the development and sharing of talent. People will be able to express themselves without the fear of judgment from other people. The management also needs to build the esteem of its employees by giving equal and deserved bonuses.
Conclusion and Recommendation
Most forms of discrimination are due to the physical appearance of people. The most common forms are gender and racial discrimination. Aside from these, people with physical inabilities are also discriminated against. Discrimination lowers not only the performance of the company, but also the self-esteem of the individual discriminated against.
The fight against discrimination is one that needs to be embraced by all individuals in the workplace. The issue is not a new subject of discussion. Since the beginning of time, people suffered a great deal of discrimination. In fact, in the 19th century and early years of the 0th century, people would fail to get jobs simply because they were not of a particular race or due to their gender. Back then, the white collar jobs were limited to the whites whereas other jobs such as carpentry, masonry, and other such jobs were left to other races such as the African-Americans, Hispanics, and the Carribeans. However, as people gained more knowledge, the rate of discrimination slowly reduced. People would be allowed equal chances of gaining knowledge and skills, thereby equal chances of employment.
Although there are consequences for various forms of discrimination, according to the Equality Act 2010, employers still practice different forms of discrimination. It is up to each employer and employee to familiarize themselves with the contents of the Act and behave accordingly. Also, employers need to shun from discriminating their employees for the progression of their companies. Once companies employ fair hiring process, equal treatment, and just layoff, their companies will record better performance. Also, the government needs to be vigilant on enforcing laws. It should set up a system whose purpose is to check on the level of discrimination and persecuting the guilty. Also, they need to educate the management of various organizations on the importance of avoiding discrimination. This way, not only will the company progress but the country as a whole.
References
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Williams, C. and Dellinger, K. (2010). Gender and sexuality in the workplace: Volume 20 of Research in the sociology of work. 1st ed. United Kingdom: Emerald, pp.1-8.
