Employment Discrimination in Regards to Research Paper

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Presence of minority groups at a workplace

At work places, individuals are being discriminated on the basis of being a minority. Structural theory states clearly there is always a consequence for being the minority. This theory is in relation to three known token dynamics which include; it leads to contrast effect that leads to social isolation, it has the element of visibility that results to performance pressure and it also results to stereotyping or role encapsulation (Bell, 2007). Discrimination may be as a result of the individual (from the minority group) being scrutinized to find out whether he/she is capable to excel in whatever he/she is doing. From this theory, an individual whom the public does not associate his/her presence with a certain kind of work is more doubted than a person whom they have faith that he/she can handle the work. For example, a woman with mechanic skills can be discriminated upon by the other workers because they do not associate such a woman doing an excellent work as compared to the one done by men (McDonald, 2008).

Secondly this theory also touches on discrimination which comes from the contrast between the majority group and the minority group. This difference leads to solidarity among the majority group members, and social isolation of the minority group members. For instance when there is a woman engineer among men engineers, the men engineers will start associating themselves as men instead of engineers as normal as they are always called. Thirdly, this theory is stereotypic in nature, whereby an individual may be discriminated or denied the opportunity to hold a certain job position because the managers do not associate those individuals from the same group to hold such positions at work (Bell, 2007).

Impact of employment discrimination

Impact on the individual

Most individuals tend to lose motivation in their work after being denied a promotion opportunity on a discriminatory basis. These individuals may have worked to attain the promotion in one way or another and failure to get the opportunity is a setback to their motivation and effort to develop their career in the organization. Therefore, after the denial, most individuals become less productive since their motivational factor is not being achieved or they may even decide to quit their jobs for others where they can grow professionally without setbacks. Employment discrimination has a physical and psychological effect to the individual who has experienced it, research has shown that individuals who have recently gone through discrimination starts to develop blood pressure and heart diseases among other conditions (Byron, 2010).

Other researches show that persons who have perceived to have been discriminated against normally experience social rejection and interpersonal problems. Eventually the affected individuals may develop coping mechanism that entails them denying that they were discriminated. As much as coping is concerned, not all persons will be able to cope in the same manner. Those affected are known to undergo the coping mechanism in two ways, first being the emotional focused coping while the other being problem-focused coping (Hirsh, 2008).

Impact on the family

Due to the different forms of employment discrimination existing in the job industry nowadays, it justifies the social closure theory which brings forth some of the barriers that prevent a certain group of individuals from achieving prosperity like their other counterparts who are the advantaged groups. Among the different America state, some groups of individuals from the same race or ethnic groups are highly discriminated upon by their employers thus bringing social inequalities through time, from generation to generation. This makes these groups weak economically and unable to improve their life circumstances, hence, leading to development of social crimes in the society (Hirsh, 2008). Different groups of individuals can be discriminated based on their cultural practices, race, color and gender among others, this in turn, makes a majority of them jobless, and the few who have jobs are not able to be awarded equal share of appraisal and compensation packages because of these discriminatory factors. Some of the effects of employment discrimination to the community include, low standards of living, homelessness, many children are sent to foster care due to their parents incapability of taking care of them, increased social crimes, poor utilization of resources hence, poor infrastructure and social amenities (Bell, 2007).

Impact on a group or organization level

Also at a group level/organizational level, employment discrimination may result to differences in job status, pay, and job type between the discriminated groups and those that have not been discriminated.

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Some organizations usually have to go through the negative effect it has on its reputation as well as increased discrimination-related litigation especially when employers introduce bias into the employee selection process. Stigmatized groups in the organization usually like to compare themselves to those in the same position as them, and when they do so they lose their self-esteem hence resulting to negative effects on job performance. Discrimination may also affect the desirability of some workers to certain job promotion and new job recruitment at a new company (Couch, 2010). When these groups decide to go out of their way and apply for the advertised posts, the discriminatory effect usually has a significant effect since most of them suffer from increased role conflicts, role ambiguity, work tension and decreased job satisfaction and work commitment.

Impact to the firm

Due to the discriminatory nature of the private firms, most of them are known to lose some of their skilled workers to firms which do not condone discrimination. This, as a result, leads to loss of profits due to reduced productivity, efficiency and loss of inexpensive labor, hence, the firm may as a result endure a greater loss (Alon, 2007). Due to discriminatory practices, many firms are faced with law suits, which drain the firm financially. The organization also suffers from negative reputation, which is bad for business.

III. SOLUTIONS

Create formal processes to build relationships

The organization may start by building a formal relationship among the workers; this might be the first step towards reducing employment discrimination. Thereafter, the workers may extend the relationship to informal social networks, and this may help to reduce discrimination more and more. In addition, the organization may improve workplace relationship by initiating mentorship program. Mentoring relationship helps to improve the relationship between a senior employee and a junior employee, so as the two give each other career guidance, they also improve their relationships.

Hold managers accountable for making bias-free decisions

Managers are normally the decision makers in the organization. Some of their choices or decision may either have positive or negative impact on the company. It is their responsibility to give guidance which will be for both the company and workers' interest. Therefore, they should be held responsible for any biased decision made such discrimination while hiring, evaluating and promoting. Managers can also be evaluated by other members of the company on some of the decisions they make through a multi-rate evaluation system such as 360 degree feedback (Bell, 2007).

Creation of strict rules and regulations within the organization

Discriminatory practices such as sexual discrimination can be stopped by having legislations which would protect female workers from exploitation. Companies which are prone to having sexual discrimination can seek services of independent firms that deal with hiring and evaluation of current workers for promotion.

In addition, sex diversity at a work place should also be encouraged since it results to efficiencies and high productivities at the work place. Short-term exposure of the workers to sex diversity may result to low group cohesion, but in the long run, the team will be experiencing cohesion and high productivity their managers should not be afraid to improve on sex diversity at their work place (Roscigno, 2007). Managers should endeavor to bring together individuals considered being on the minority side together with those on the majority side because this does not lead to unproductiveness but, on the other hand, it leads to unity because the minority groups will no longer feel alienated.

Use of structured evaluation techniques

Companies normally have challenges during their decision making process because most of the relevant decision are unspecified. Assessment of all employees might be affected by ambiguity which in turn affects the assessment process. With a large number of assessments to be done, most assessors often find themselves stereotyping people especially when hiring and promoting employees. Therefore, to reduce this ambiguity, the organization should have a formal structure programs which should be used to evaluate the workers (Bell, 2007).

Having competitive market environment

Discrimination can also be reduced by having a competitive environment among the firms, though this is a broad solution to discrimination practices, studies show that it can have some impacts on how employees handle workers in the private sector. At the same time, managers of some competitive firms may not always act rationally, since they may decide to forgo profit….....

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