How to solve discrimination in business.
Over the recent years the business community has experienced several problems.
These challenges have resulted to dragging of how different business entities work and hence failure in business. One of the problems affecting business globally is discrimination. Discrimination is defined as the prejudicial treatment of several types of individual or things. Discrimination is an epidemic that has been present in the past years but it has emerged to be a major problem in our current society. Discrimination can be categorized into different forms in the society. The different forms in which discrimination is practiced include: gender, race, national origin, skin color, age, mental or physical disability and parenthood or pregnancy. In a business setting discrimination could take place in different situations which include: signifying chosen candidates in job advertisement, denying some employees some compensation, discrimination when giving some leaves such as maternity and disability and discriminations when giving some promotions. This argumentative proposal essay aims to discuss discrimination as a problem affecting business and possible solutions to fix the issue.
One of the workplace-based discrimination in our current society is age. This issue has been addressed and have been protected by the law. When companies advertise for job vacancies, most of them specify the age preference they need their employees to be in. For instance, in February of this year, prior to the covid-19 pandemic several organizations were closed up and many people lost their jobs. The equal employment opportunity commission (EEOC) filed a case against Yale New Haven Hospital for being alleged to participate in age discrimination in their employment. For example, when one hundred and forty-five physicians underwent an evaluation in this hospital, around ten percent of them were considered to be below the borderline.
To solve the issue of age discrimination, there is a need to have a policy. This policy should encompass all the definitions of age discrimination with their examples. For example, in a workplace setting, if a manager observes an unacceptable behavior, they should take an immediate course action to deal with the problem. The manager could take aside the discriminated person and start assessing the discrimination situation from their own perspectives. The perpetrator may be warned if the manger does not want to take formal action to deal with the issue. To end age discrimination, the companies should also encourage mentoring. These companies are generally warm to work since workers of different ages passes on their experience either downwards or upwards.
The other way of reducing discrimination is focusing on diversity. Diversity in any workplace can be seen as the manner in which a company employs people with different characteristics such as gender, age, and religion. This could only be possible by making the recruiting process to be more appealing and inclusive to people of diverse characteristics. To ensure that a business possess diversity this should start from the interviewing panel. The people present in the panel should be diverse to help uncover unconscious biases, resulting in fairness and equity in the recruitment process. When the business entity is in need of few workers, the business owner could reward current employees to recommend diverse candidates. The employees could help in bringing the underrepresented people in the business hence receive some bonuses and rewards for any diverse candidate presented. Building a diverse work place has several tangible benefits that impact the business hence boosting the reputation of the business. Among the benefits of practicing diversity in any bossiness include: increased business profits, high employee engagement, better decision making and more innovations from different members of the business.
Communication is another aspect that can be used to reduce discrimination in a business. The business owner should inspire for open communication to make sure that employees are comfortable when discussing mattes affecting them in the business to their supervisors. For instance, if a certain employee in a business feels discriminated against, it could be important and safe for them to bring up the issue affecting them. When it comes to how customers relate to employees, communication plays a vital role in enhancing the business’s success. Starbucks which is one of the worldwide companies without brand name is widely known for the ethics it shows to the customers it serves. In the year 2018 some coffee connoisseurs in the United States provoked a scandal towards two men who were racially treated in their cafes. Starbucks came up by closing over 8,000 stores to conduct a racial investigation concerning the two men. This was a sign to the community that Starbucks still value commitment to their customers.
Another way of reducing discrimination in business is being a good example to your employees. The manner in which an employer behave towards the employees sets a standard to the team members. The employees will definitely respect you and the business if they feel that they receive good treatment when working. Since no one is perfect, the employer should always have humility and willingness to admit mistakes. A good leader should allow the employees to observe and comment whenever the employer makes some mistakes in a business. When accepting some mistakes that may have happened, the leader demonstrates some form of role model in the business. when every member of a certain business is ready to be corrected the business will not be involved in any form of discrimination activities.
As the expression says,” The whole is greater than sum of its parts” its therefore clear that team building in business help to reduce discrimination. The manager of any business should hold several team building sessions to help the team members to know each other. The manager can use the session to introduce every member involved in the business. If the members come from different ethnic groups and are of different gender they will definitely embrace working together as a team. This helps in enhancing a positive work environment hence no room for discrimination. One individual is not capable of achieving what a team can be able to do as a whole. To have an effective team in business there should be planning, communication and good decision making. When a certain group of people are assigned a certain task to perform in business, they will perform the task efficiently with no discrimination to meet the requirements of their employer. With no discrimination in the business, customers will come up with their referrals to the business hence improving the sector.
To reduce discrimination in a business community, the employees present in a business should be educated. The members of the business should be aware of what discrimination constitutes. The people participating in the business should be educated since discrimination activities in any workplace result as a result of learned behaviors stemming from the childhood of a person. Therefore, there should be some seminars or workshops to help sensitize the act of discrimination. The topics that should be handled in these seminars should be related to discrimination and how it is identified in different institutions and society. The seminars should be necessary to be involved by every member although one may resist the topic being discussed, it may have a negative impact on discrimination. The business leaders create an opportunity to enhance a positive mindset to the members, hence implementing good strategies to curb discrimination. The company should therefore participate in advising its members the importance of attending such meetings. When new members are recruited into the business, they should also be first shown the effects of discrimination in any business.
Furthermore, discrimination topics should be incorporated in leadership seminars in order to give specific recommendations. The leaders should regularly incorporate the topic of discrimination in their team meetings to portray unity with the organization and remind the organization members of the work’s goal where discrimination is not tolerated. The aspect of education in form of trainings and seminars is the most important. These educational events help change one’s behavior and attitude and positive framing and interpersonal interaction. The need to educate employees and the leaders of different companies on discrimination helps in ensuring a healthy and also contented working place. The seminars, workshops and the development programs therefore play a tremendous role in decreasing discrimination in a work place.
In any workplace, discrimination can be reduced by offering psychological support to the people in the workplace. When someone is discriminated, the individual could have an enormous impact on the health of a person which could abruptly increase the stress level. This discrimination could result to serious illness such as depression and burnouts. social support in any work place or any private life is necessary for maintaining good mental and physical health. The psychological support therefore helps to organization members to feel as part of the organization hence they will be motivated to continue working in the business.
Another way of reducing discrimination in a busines is the active positioning of the organization and industrious choice of employees. Different companies, institutions and businesses should enhance anti-harassment regulations and policies on the ways of supporting the discrimination victims. This goes hand in hand with the company’s need to display itself in a clear and active position. This could include enacting no discrimination policies, providing ethical guidelines and how every member of the organization should conduct him/herself in the organization. Active reporting of discriminatory activities in the workplace to the relevant authority can also be used as means of reducing discrimination in the business. When it comes to the workers selected in any workplace it is taken as an important step since it facilitates in boosting more civil and healthy working environments. In any working place, the decisions made by every person should involve the six-eye principle for example the human resource manager attempt to get an agreement to end discriminatory influences on some decisions.
In conclusion, avoiding discrimination in any organization, business or institution is not only important in solving economic problem but also helps in reducing psychological health of individuals. From the above argument proposal essay, it can be concluded that enacting policies, focusing on diversity, proper communication, team building, educating the employees, enhancing psychological support and active positioning of the organization are important steps that can be put to eliminate or decrease discrimination in business or an organization. Besides the mentioned steps of eliminating discrimination the other ways could be talking gender-wise and employing the aspect of language.