Unfair Discrimination at Work

1. Introduction

What makes individual employees different may be used as a grounds for discrimination in the workplace. The grounds include culture, birth, race, gender, age, religion, political affiliation, social or ethnic origin, pregnancy, HIV status, language, marital status, belief, and disability among other issues. Discrimination maybe direct where it can be easily identified or indirect where it is harder to identify. For example, employers differentiating employees by gender, paying female employees less for the same services rendered by male workers is direct discrimination. Indirect discrimination can entail workplace procedures and policies that seem neutral but have a disparate and negative effect on some groups of employees, such as pregnancy policies or health benefits. In this report, the main object is to explore and present the problem of how unfair discrimination at the workplace can be tackled. The discussion will look at the issue from an employee-employer perspective, identifying key equality and diversity strategies and offering examples of progress initiatives and policies for comparative analysis. Therefore, the report begins by exploring literature on the issue of unfair discrimination, equality and diversity approaches, and progressive initiatives and policies. The arguments from different scholars will be presented offering personal input where necessary. The data collection methods used in the study will then be presented, noting down the findings, and presenting how well they helped in answering the essay question. Additionally, an analysis of the key issues will be provided through insightful synthesis using literature and empirical material. Lastly, a conclusion will be provided highlighting the key points, reflecting on the limitations of the essay and identifying future research directions and proposing policy recommendations.

2. Review of Previous Literature

In the modern workplace, diversity of ideas, beliefs, racial background, personal issues, political ideas, ideologies on life, and other social, economic, political, or social issues are a common sight. With diversity, it only means that people cannot be all the same in appearance, gender, political direction, opinions on environmental issues, and so on. Therefore, Vallejo-Torres, Morris, & Lopez-Valcarcel (2018) found that unfair discrimination on the basis of one or more of the issues mentioned is likely to occur, where the employer or those representative of an employer would undermine the fundamental dignity of an employee, deny some human rights such as religion and beliefs, or even seek to humiliate, demean, and other create hostile conditions making it hard to perform one’s role effectively. Some behavior falls between harassment and unfair discrimination. The distinction is not so obvious, warranting a proper scholarly definition in order to inform the direction of the current report.

2.1 Understanding Unfair Discrimination

With the diversity of thoughts, sociopolitical issues, cultural concerns, and other issues that affect the debate on workplace relations, there is no much consensus on the definition of unfair discrimination. However, a research by Jackson & Jackson (2019) found that unfair discrimination is largely defined according to context, such as organizational or corporate level, formal versus informal employment issues, and so on. Therefore, there is a gap in defining unfair discrimination using universal language that agrees with every other definition available. That said, Seifert & Wang (2018) note that the extant definitions of unfair discrimination are similar in that they show some form of unfair treatment directed towards an employee or groups of employees on the basis of other elements such as culture, birth, race, gender, age, religion, political affiliation, social or ethnic origin, pregnancy, HIV status, language, marital status, belief, and disability among other issues. Ideally, it means getting a different treatment compared to other employees, in a manner that can be regarded directly or indirectly as negative. Unfair discrimination leads to impairing of a person’s dignity as a human being due to the different and unfair treatment. Therefore, unfair discrimination can be rightly understood as intentionally treating others differently compared to how another group of individuals would be treated in the same exact conditions, leading to negative outcomes for an employee.

2.2 Tackling Discrimination: Equality and Diversity Approaches

Due to the differences in corporate culture and other social factors, diversity and equality approaches differ from one organization to the next. Nonetheless, Jackson & Jackson (2019) observed that a majority of firms employ the same strategies including creation of an inclusive work culture through leadership and the management style, employee engagement, and routine review and assessment of organizational procedures, practices, and policies to ensure that the overall culture corresponds to an environment that creates diversity and equality in all aspects of employment. In the same vein, Vallejo-Torres, Morris, & Lopez-Valcarcel (2018) assert that the most appropriate equality and diversity approaches are embedded in the way organizations handle career progressions, rewards and remuneration, complaints, employee turnover, disciplinary issues, performance management, learning and development, recruitment, and employee benefits. Ideally, this introduces an issue of internal management. The way an organization treats internal policies, procedures, and practices is definitive of its stand on unfair discrimination, and diversity and equality issues. In a more modern view of the issue of equality and diversity approaches, Seifert & Wang (2018) recommend training on workplace policies for all managers and employees relating to what constitutes discrimination, inclusion, and diversity. The overall idea is to ensure that the workplace is free of unconscious biases and that every employee is aware of the need to be respectful of the others’ views, positions, cultures, opinions, and different perspectives on life on top of personal and physical differences. For example, the recruitment process must have access to a wider pool of talents making sure that the procedures or practices required are not restrictive in any way. The language used in recruitment processes, internal communications, policy documents, and other important organizational elements must convey a culture of being mindful of other people’s stance on different issues, their physical attributes, their insecurities, biases, and so on.

2.3 Tackling Discrimination: Progressive Policies and Initiatives

Diversity and equality have a core position in ensuring organizational success today. Creating an inclusive culture is identified by Jones et al. (2017) as a critical means of attaining both organizational and consumer demands. To make a diversity and equality program a success, there is a need to conduct a thorough assessment of needs, in order to know what needs to change or improve in a certain direction. For example, it may be that an organization indirectly discriminates against women by attracting a talent pool that is dominantly male. The presence of women in the workplace may inhibit gender diversity and poor policies in an organization that does not assess current needs. Seifert & Wang (2018) mention that one of the most progressive policy is fostering internal growth, in line with ensuring diversity and inclusion. For example, mentoring programs must ensure that the diversity in a workplace is attained through creating conducive environments for growth of women to managerial roles. Progressive policies and initiatives are the key to ensuring that discrimination at work is tackled and eliminated.

3. Presentation of Data and Findings

In this section, data collection techniques will be mentioned. The section will also present the findings for purposes of analysis.

3.1 Data Collection

The present analysis is based on research collected from previous research studies on the subject. For this essay, secondary data was collected from published scholarly articles, statistical records, and journals relating to the research question on how to tackle unfair discrimination at work. Additionally, case studies were used to provide access to real-life situations and materials including policies, organizational culture, reports, company procedures, hiring strategies, retention policies, internal employee development programs, and publications on the procedures required for various diversity and equality programs. Data collection followed a simple pattern of searching for key terms on Google Scholar followed by a review of the articles on relevance and applicability to the research study. The paper relied on tried and tested data, including case studies mentioned in previous studies that have been filtered and analyzed. The reason for choosing this method is because the effectiveness of policies and strategies mentioned and applied in the research studies have already been tested. It is, therefore, easier to create a working thesis and hypothesis, as well as evaluating the efficiency of policies in applying to a specific workplace or industry.

3.2 Findings

The research found that despite the commitment by a majority of employers and their organizations to end unfair discrimination, different groups of employees continue to experience such treatment in their workplace. Van Laer & Janssens (2011) report that about 25% of employees in major organizations have felt some type of discrimination, usually on the lines of gender, religion, or race. Further, Marshburn, Harrington, & Ruggs (2017) posit that there is an unusually high levels of stigmatization in organizations on the basis of physical [un]attractiveness, handicaps, gender, and race. Madera, Lee, & Kapoor (2017) established that there is an emerging concept of discrimination being observed to be a shifting phenomenon that is becoming increasingly difficult to quantify and address meaningfully. According to a recent research study by Jackson & Jackson (2019), there is a gap in the research on unfair discrimination at work, evidenced by the lack of proper indicators to capture progress or elimination in an organization. Additionally, the changing face of discrimination is becoming more difficult to track. There are evolving changes to the way research studies approach the question of unfair discrimination, failing to incorporate different forms of discrimination by focusing on conventional unfair practices such as racism and sexism. For example, Van Laer & Janssens (2011) found that the focus on physical attractiveness (or the perception of lack thereof) is a source of unfair discrimination in the workplace that has been largely ignored by extant literature. Additionally, evolving rules and regulations on research and data collection such as privacy protection and political barriers hinder the proper collection of information on certain employee groups (Jones et al., 2017). Therefore, these changes in the way people relate, ideologies, political correctness, rules and regulations, have prevented data collection on issues relating to unfair discrimination.

Many organizations have continued to implement progressive programs and initiatives in an effort to curb unfair discrimination at work. Seifert & Wang (2018) note that there is a clear focus on eliminating direct discrimination, termed by Jackson & Jackson (2019) as intentional and explicit discrimination. However, unconscious, subtle, and automatic discrimination as well as statistical and profiling discrimination types are largely ignored at the workplace (Madera, Lee, & Kapoor, 2017). While policies, procedures, and programs are correct on paper, there is an implementation problem at the organizational level. Proposals such as training, an inclusive work culture through leadership and the management style, employee engagement, and routine review and assessment of organizational procedures, practices, and policies do not show effectiveness in eliminating indirect discrimination.

4. Discussion

The findings point to a recurrent theme identified earlier on in the literature review. First, there is a problem with proper definition of the term unfair discrimination, because of the uniqueness of every organization and the various roles played by and filled by different employees. The findings point out that the diversity of thoughts, sociopolitical issues, cultural concerns, and other issues have not only affected the debate on workplace relations, but also prevented attainment of a consensus on the definition of unfair discrimination. Unfair discrimination on the basis of physical, social, cultural, political, or environmental factors, where the employer or those representative of an employer would undermine the fundamental dignity of an employee, deny some human rights such as religion and beliefs, or even seek to humiliate, demean, and other create hostile conditions making it hard to perform one’s role effectively. The findings point out that these issues are evolving, away from the traditional direct discrimination to include newer and more complicated indirect discriminatory practices at the workplace. The findings converge to previous literature that found unfair discrimination definitions to be similar in that they show some form of unfair treatment directed towards an employee or groups of employees on the basis of other elements such as culture, birth, race, gender, age, religion, political affiliation, social or ethnic origin, pregnancy, HIV status, language, marital status, belief, and disability among other issues. The analysis of findings drive the study to view unfair discrimination as intentionally treating others differently compared to how another group of individuals would be treated in the same exact conditions, leading to negative outcomes for an employee.

The findings relate to previous assertions from scholars on the issue of unfair discrimination and ways of tackling it at the workplace. The findings, similar to previous literature from Seifert & Wang (2018), indicate that modern organizations use the same strategies including creation of an inclusive work culture through leadership and the management style, employee engagement, and routine review and assessment of organizational procedures, practices, and policies to ensure that the overall culture corresponds to an environment that creates diversity and equality in all aspects of employment. It is also important to add that organizations rarely craft special strategies and initiatives linked to special needs. Instead, Jackson & Jackson (2019) agree with Van Laer & Janssens (2011) that the most appropriate equality and diversity approaches are embedded in the way organizations handle career progressions, rewards and remuneration, complaints, employee turnover, disciplinary issues, performance management, learning and development, recruitment, and employee benefits.

The convergence in research between the current findings and previous studies point to the accuracy of data collected earlier on in the decade. Even with the current a gap in the research on unfair discrimination at work, evidenced by the lack of proper indicators to capture progress or elimination in an organization, a number of positive steps have been made in the field of research and implementation. For instance, diversity and equality occupy a core position in ensuring organizational success today. Due to research, organizations are now more aware of consumer needs. Due to the changing business environment, creating an inclusive culture is now a critical means for organizations to attain consumer demands and attain their bottom line. Now, diverse organizations and those with an inclusive culture are getting positive reception from consumers, leading to more positive changes and improvement of issues that could lead to discrimination.

5. Conclusion

5.1 Key Points

A very important point to restate is that unfair discrimination is largely defined according to context, such as organizational or corporate level, formal versus informal employment issues, and so on. Therefore, there is a gap in defining unfair discrimination using universal language that agrees with every other definition available. Due to the differences in corporate culture and other social factors, diversity and equality approaches differ from one organization to the next. Again, the issue of unfair discrimination has not been properly defined, and a majority of employers do not see indirect discrimination as so. Overall, the discussion has shown that what makes individual employees different may be used as a grounds for discrimination in the workplace. The discussion has assessed the issue from an employee-employer perspective, identifying key equality and diversity strategies and offering examples of progress initiatives and policies for comparative analysis. The findings point to a recurrent theme identified earlier on in the literature review. First, there is a problem with proper definition of the term unfair discrimination, because of the uniqueness of every organization and the various roles played by and filled by different employees. The findings converge to previous literature that found unfair discrimination definitions to be similar in that they show some form of unfair treatment directed towards an employee or groups of employees on the basis of other elements such as culture, birth, race, gender, age, religion, political affiliation, social or ethnic origin, pregnancy, HIV status, language, marital status, belief, and disability among other issues.

5.2 Limitations of the Essay

The essay faced a problem when collecting data of deciphering information only to include specific research studies. The limitation with using secondary data is that it may be too general and sometimes vague. Therefore, going through tens of research studies to identify those that are specific and relevant to the essay was time consuming. Another problem was that a majority of the data available from previous studies were out of date and therefore not applicable to the current issues of discrimination. For example, a number of research studies focused on racism and sexism only. New indirect unfair discrimination practices such as underpaying women or young people have not been properly addressed. Again, by using secondary research approach, the companies used for the evaluations may not resemble what the business world has today. Future research should focus on covering the definition gap that has been identified in this essay. A more refined definition will allow organizations to formulate policies based on it. Another important element for future studies should be the focus on indirect discrimination practices to explore more on the subject and identify the evolving patterns.

5.3 Proposed Policy Recommendations

For organizations, it is recommended that policies be implemented to ensure that the workplace is free of unconscious biases and that every employee is aware of the need to be respectful of the others’ views, positions, cultures, opinions, and different perspectives on life on top of personal and physical differences. Companies must have access to a wider pool of talents making sure that the procedures or practices required are not restrictive in any way. Additionally, the language used in recruitment processes, internal communications, policy documents, and other important organizational elements must convey a culture of being mindful of other people’s stance on different issues, their physical attributes, their insecurities, and biases. Governments should also be involved in solving the discrimination issue by providing rules and regulations for the workplace, including appropriate employer regulations on conduct.

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