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Tips to Help You Avoid Workplace Discrimination

Chelsea Bikner
Tips to Help You Avoid Workplace Discrimination
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Published on Nov 5
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With the proliferation of workplace discrimination allegations and cases hitting the news today, you should take heed the warning that discrimination in the office is a serious issue that could land your company in hot water. Discrimination can be based on any number of factors and comes in many different forms.

Make sure that your managers and employees understand different types of discrimination and ways that you can help to combat potential discrimination. Read on to learn more about what discrimination might look like and the steps you can take to prevent or stop it in its tracks.

Defining discrimination

Discrimination occurs when a person or group is treated unequally and less favorably than another person or group due to circumstances or personal characteristics. These can include:

  • race;
  • age;
  • religious belief;
  • gender;
  • sexual orientation;
  • marital status;
  • pregnancy;
  • political belief or activity;
  • union membership or activity;
  • impairment or disability (whether temporary or permanent); or
  • obligations as a parent or caregiver.

Discrimination can occur during the hiring phase and during employment. Examples of direct discrimination include not hiring a qualified candidate for a position due to a disability or their race; not hiring a qualified worker for a position simply because of their age; and giving preferential treatment to men over women for a position even when both are equally qualified.

Imposing gender-conforming dress codes can sometimes be construed as workplace discrimination as well. If you refuse to allow a pregnant employee the opportunity to apply for a promotion or don’t give them equal consideration when making the promotion decision, you are engaging in discriminatory practices. These are just a few examples of the many types of situations and circumstances in which discrimination often occurs.

Develop a written policy

As a first step in combatting workplace discrimination, your employee and management handbooks should have a clearly written anti-discrimination policy. All employees should receive the policy as part of their onboarding process and must sign that they have read and understand the policy.

Your HR department or PEO partner should also hold meetings annually, at a minimum, to reiterate your zero-tolerance policy and remind employees of their responsibility in reporting discrimination when it occurs. Your employees should understand that no repercussions will be taken against them for reporting workplace discrimination and that you will address every report seriously. As such, your policy should also include guidelines for reporting complaints and detail the action steps that are triggered when a complaint is made.

Team training

Trainings offer you and your employees the opportunity to discuss what does and does not constitute discrimination in the workplace. Your training should help break down any misconceptions about discrimination and provide information about unacceptable languages and behaviors.

In addition to traditional trainings, you should offer opportunities for team-building exercises and interactions between employees. These events give employees greater insight and understanding of their coworkers, which can help to break down the misconceptions that often lead to discrimination.

While you want to keep any trainings or meetings as positive as possible, make sure that you also cover current company policy, updates to your original policy, how to respond if you’re the victim of discrimination, and what to do if you witness other employees being discriminated against. Among other topics, you will want to:

  • educate all your workers about discrimination;
  • encourage workers to respect each other’s differences;
  • address any questions that employees have about your policy or discrimination in general; and
  • remind employees that reporting discrimination is vital to stopping it.

Be consistent

Once you’ve laid out your policy and conducted trainings to make sure that employees have a firm understanding of their rights and responsibilities under the policy, you must ensure that you and your management staff consistently respond to and address claims of discrimination in a fair and firm manner. Disciplinary action should always follow the protocol laid out in your policy, no matter who is reporting or accused of discrimination. Consistency shows that you are serious and committed to treating everyone fairly and by the same standards regarding discriminatory practices.

Your PEO partners at Sheakley can help you write a discrimination policy that covers your company and your employees. Sheakley’s Human Resources experts can also evaluate your existing hiring and employment practices to make sure that you aren’t inadvertently engaging in discriminatory practices.

Get your free consultation with a Sheakley HR representative today and find out how we can help you develop policies and procedures to help you attract an increasingly socially aware workforce.

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