1.0 Introduction
This article is about discrimination and how it impacts organizations and society at large. The aim of the paper is to provide a broad perspective on discrimination and what organizations should do to avoid the negative impacts of discrimination at the work places. Discrimination is when individuals or an individual is treated unfairly than others because of their age, race, nationality, religion or belief, sexual orientation among other ground. The article therefore will focus on forms of discrimination, why discrimination is a problem in both organizations and society, impact of discrimination to organizations and society, role of organizations in avoiding discriminations and a summary of recommendations on how discrimination can be addressed so as to avoid the resulting negative effects.
2.0 Organizations and Society
All business organizations operate in an environment is dynamic (Bose 2002. The way an organization operates is largely determined by its external environment forces such as political, legal, social, economic and latterly, technological. Given that employees of all organizations are drawn from the society, the social practices are likely to get their way into the organizations offices in how people relate. Discrimination at the work place is often a reflection of discrimination at the society. Firms therefore should take initiatives to create and sustain an organizational culture that protects all its employees against any form of discrimination.
3.0 Forms of Discrimination
Discrimination can be classified into two broad categories namely; Direct discrimination and indirect discrimination. Direct discrimination is when an individual is treated unfairly due to his or her specific characteristics like race, nationality, gender or even nationality. This form of discrimination is common at workplaces where there are no deliberate measures to discourage discrimination. The employees due to competition for positions and recognition resort to use of discrimination so as to favor a given group of individuals over the others. For or instance, denying one an employment opportunity when they are qualified but do not belong to the desired race or nationality. It is important to note that direct discrimination is usually obvious and many a times the society where it happens supports the practice. On the other hand, indirect discrimination is a form of discrimination whereby the policies in place seem to be discouraging any form of discrimination but in practice, there still exists some criteria that gives some individuals a chance over other individuals. An example is restricting one’s job application due to age, gender, imposition of some physical requirements that are not relevant to the discharging of duties.
- Impact of discrimination to organizations
Discrimination at work places is largely affects the employees and in turn, the organization’s performance suffers the effect (Saunders 1992). Although discrimination is often seen as a perception, when employees experience discrimination at their work place, majority end up getting stressed, less motivated, low self esteem, low productivity and efficiency. At times, should those affected decide to seek legal intervention, the organization is likely to incur unnecessary litigation costs. The negative effects associated with discrimination entails.
- Lawsuits
To protect citizens and employees, trade unions and governments have made deliberate efforts to enact laws aimed at protecting these individuals against discrimination at work. Most of these laws protect individuals against discrimination on basis of race, colour and religion. Others have gone an extra mile to provide for necessary facilities and structures that allow those disabled individuals to have access to and use the facilities. Any individual who experiences any form of discrimination is free to seek legal protection and justice which end up as an unnecessary expense to the organization sued.
- Poor work atmosphere
Discrimination at workplaces creates a poor work atmosphere. This is because employees affected by any form of discrimination develop resentment, hostility and suspicion. This may end up creating two groups of workers, those who feel favoured and on the other hand those who feel discriminated against. Team work in such a scenario is not achievable and free communication is hampered due to the mistrust.
- Loss of Focus and Productivity
Whenever employees of a given organization experiences discrimination, often, they will share their experiences among themselves and for those who are bold, they go ahead and present their complaints to the management. Resolving reported discrimination cases entails convening of meetings to discuss the cases, formulation of policies and relevant remedial measures. These activities are time consuming and they often divert attention from the core activities of the organization concerned. Productive workers end up losing morale and this directly impacts on their productivity and so is that of the organization.
- Loss of patronage
News on cases of discrimination reaches many people within and outside the organization very fast with a potential of damaging the organization’s reputation and goodwill. Customers who used to be served by the affected individual tend to shun the organization’s products or services and this affects the company’s revenue base. If the negative word of mouth spread across a wide customer base, the impact is likely to be huge to the extent of damaging the reputation of the organization.
- Impact on Individuals
Workplace discrimination directly affects the worker psyche making them feel used and wasted. When for instance one’s chance to advance is lost due to discrimination, the individual is likely to get depressed leading to low productivity and even violence at home.
- Impact on Society
To the larger society, work place discrimination may lead to high unemployment rates in a nation. This is as a result of organizations denying qualified individuals employment opportunities on the basis certain biases. For instance, most companies don’t hire women and whenever they lack a suitable candidate, they terminate the hiring process all together.
- Role organizations can play to avoid discrimination
Organizations have a major role to play in as far as work place related discrimination is concerned. This role may be to avoid instances of discrimination or prevent occurrence of the same entails:
- Training on Discrimination
Organizing for and offering all workers training on how to recognize discrimination, social prejudice and the effects of discrimination to both the individuals and the organization. This will empower the workers and contribute towards creation of discrimination free culture within the organization.
- Discipline
Disciplining all workers found guilty of discrimination can be helpful. This will re-enforce the importance of the policy on being an equal opportunity employer. Those tempted to discriminate on others are likely to fear consequences of doing so.
- Transparency in hiring
Emphasizing on transparent hiring process that does not give any regard to race, sex, nationality or religion. Those hired should be hired based on their qualifications and merit but not other discriminatory bases that deliberately disadvantage others who could otherwise qualify for the job opportunity.
- Discrimination policies
Develop policies on work place discrimination so as to nature and develop an organization culture that is free from all forms of discrimination. The policies should make the work place friendly and accommodating all without any prejudices.
- Communication channels
Structured and clear communication channels should be established to enable those affected to report any form of discrimination to the authorities. Upon receiving and report on cases of discrimination, the organization should ensure that the issues raised are dealt with transparently and to the satisfaction of the affected individuals. The established channel of communication should equally be confidential to avoid any unnecessary victimization of those individuals who may wish to report cases of discrimination.
- Objective recruitment
Develop objective recruitment tools that bring out the abilities of the targeted individuals rather than other discriminatory aspects such as sex orientation, age, race, marital status or nationality.
- Employee and Customer satisfaction surveys
Organizations should conduct a survey to establish on what the perception of its workers and customers is in regard to cases of work place discrimination or any form of discrimination. Such surveys should be carried out by an independent firm so as to collect as many views as possible while remaining objective.
- Role of society in avoiding discrimination
Much of the discrimination that finds its way into the work places can be traced back to the society. Society due to competition and minimal personal accountability tends to discriminate a lot so as to achieve selfish goals at the expense of those who are discriminated against. If the society could play its role in so far as discrimination is concerned, our work place would have minimal if any form of discrimination. The role of society can therefore be summarized as follows:
- Support of initiatives to stop discrimination
The society should be at the forefront to give both material and financial support to initiatives aimed at stopping discrimination. When there is such a culture in the society, it even becomes easier to extend the practice to the organizations operating within that society.
- Establishing social clubs with diversity in membership
Social clubs promote interaction among various groups and classes of people. The society should be driven by diversity rather than discrimination of any nature when admitting and establishing social clubs.
- Promote social activities
Social activities such as sports and entertainment should be promoted so as to provide an opportunity of different groups to come together without any discrimination and appreciate their diversity. This creates a sense of belonging among the different groups of people who may perceiving each other as enemies.
- Conclusion
Discrimination at workplace is a common challenge that most organizations have been experiencing in the past. Although many employees could keep to themselves, enactment of various laws by governments and civil societies has enlightened workers on how to obtain justice whenever discriminated against. Organizations have also taken deliberate measures to prevent and avoid cases of work place discrimination with a view to protect themselves against any risks that may come as a result of work place discrimination. Individuals on the other hand have become enlightened on their human rights and are now than before willing to demand for fair treatment at all times without and discrimination at all. The outcomes of this interaction between the society, citizens, civil societies and organizations have made huge contributions towards creating a sustainable system that is free from all kinds of discrimination. In view of the various aspects discussed on work place discrimination and the recommendations made on how to address work place discrimination, it is true to say that indeed work place discrimination is a concern in many organizations today and there is need for deliberate efforts to overcome it so as to have organizations that are free of discrimination.
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