Abstract
The project deals with the problem of beautism in the workplace, it discriminatory effects on hiring, the extent of spreading, legality, and reasons. The example of college beautism-related employment incident is given a particular focus in the concluding part of the research. The project is based on the opinions of leading legal and employment experts, scientists and analysts.
Keywords: beautism, lookism, hiring, discrimination, termination, workplace, staff
Employment is an integral part of human resource management that deals with attracting and hiring new personnel as well as professional development and rewarding practices. Skilful hiring is prerequisite to the successful functioning of any fiscal or nonprofit entity, whether business enterprise or educational establishment. Important though it may be, incompetent or rather employment staff representatives go as far as to take on unskillful employees based on the principle of what has come to be known as beautism or lookism. Employers make their hiring decision after a visual evaluation, sometimes without letting applicants comment on their merits and biographic milestones. Thus, must-take employees are left unemployed while those accepted instead contribute to a company premature professional demise. This trend is particularly strong in the sphere of services and business where employees represent brand names and cooperate with clients on a daily basis. Beautism is a work-related discriminatory prejudice that has its understandable reasons, discriminatory effects, and legal peculiarities.
Beautism and Its Discriminatory Effects on Hiring
Beautism is a type of bias against people by reason of their appearance. It has drawn plenty of attention in recent years as a prejudice that denies would-be employees their right to be accepted for employment on an equal basis (Tietje & Cresap, 2005). A research conducted by the labor market clearly demonstrated that attractiveness is a real boon for employees who receive “preferential treatment” while for those who do not possess appealing external attributes the lack of beauty is equal to penalty. The reason for this to happen is that employers tend to associate beauty with positive traits by force of a societal stereotype (Cavico, Muffler, & Mujtaba, 2012). According to McDonald (2010), stout businesspersons with a strategically rational game plan are unlikely to employ and promote their workforce based on lookism principle, although be it that such will be required in modelling, perfumes selling, or fitness training where proportions and beauty are a priority. Rather than accepting such individuals, rational employers will opt for experienced, apt, and qualified applicants. Employees that are more attractive tend to profit by their external attributes since, according to Hamermesh (2011), they earn as much as 230,000 dollars more compared to their less appealing counterparts (as cited in Cavico, Muffler, & Mujtaba, 2012).
Reasons, Legality, and Extent of Discrimination
There may be a rationale behind beauty discrimination since it is in direct proportion to labor productivity, in other word, a company may generate more money, with attractive employees in the team. After examining 250 Dutch advertising companies, Saltau (2001) found that companies manned by appealing employees proved much more successful in what they did when benchmarked against companies staffed by workforce who were qualified rather than good-looking (as cited in Tietje & Cresap, 2005). Cavico, Muffler, and Mujtaba (2012) opined that appearance determined customers’ perception of a company, which was why employers use this hallmark as one of marketing techniques. Whether at a clothing store, in a restaurant, or in a television studio, good-looking employees are needed and they will be chosen over the less attractive. Whenever it is required that employees interact with customers, these interviewees will be given priority and higher salaries (Tietje & Cresap, 2005).
Publilius Syrus, a famous Roman writer, stated once, “A fair exterior is a silent recommendation”. More than that, William Shakespeare was convinced that beauty could persuade the eyes of a person better than an orator could (Cavico, Muffler, & Mujtaba, 2012). In other words, external perfection has a magic power over customers, whose resistance is broken the moment they see it. According to Cavico, Muffler, and Mujtaba (2012), the aphorism saying, “soap does not sell, sex does” applies to the core business strategy and speaks volumes for why beautism is deeply enrooted in entrepreneurial mentality. According to Steinle (2006), what customers buy into are appealing teenage sales associates, seductive women at lingerie or cosmetics counters and waitresses who remind of scantily dressed Barbie dolls (as cited in Cavico, Muffler, & Mujtaba, 2012). Mujtaba (2010) believed that American society major concern is a good-looking appearance and sexiness and business is no different to its customers in this attitude (as cited in Cavico, Muffler, & Mujtaba, 2012). Corbett (2011) noticed that American society of today is unprecedentedly bent on appearance and supply is tailored to meet the demand, with employers making decisions in favor of more appealing and physically superior interviewees (as cited in Cavico, Muffler, & Mujtaba, 2012). It seems that American employers might well understand what is best for business in many ways.
As it stands these days, the US have the employment at-will doctrine regulate hiring process. This cornerstone principle suggests it is up to an employer to choose what applicant to accept for employment. According to Corbett (2011), Cavico and Mujtaba (2008), this is not all there is to it since this postulate makes it possible for employers to fire workers for whatever reason that they feel relevant, no contractual caveats forbidding. They must no more furnish reasons, whether moral, good or bad, than they must issue warnings, explanations, or notices regarding an untimely termination (as cited in Cavico, Muffler, and Mujtaba, 2012). However discriminative, this tenet will unlikely be revised as long as, according to Corbett (2007, 2011), it makes an encroachment on employers’ right to manage their staff (as cited in Cavico, Muffler, and Mujtaba, 2012). That being said, at-will doctrine is so popular with employers to the extent that a considerable number of companies tend to resort to this strategy, without risking a lawsuit.
According to McDonald (2010), a small minority of jurisdictions have legislation that protects applicants from appearance discrimination. The statute of the District of Columbia as well as that of Santa Cruz, California, provides for this category. Michigan and San Francisco antidiscrimination decrees forbid employers the above-mentioned hiring practice based on the principles of weight and height. Nor does the Civil Rights Act protect applicants from a lookism selective approach. According to Cavico, Muffler, and Mujtaba (2012), Title 7 of the Civil Rights Act does defend employees against discrimination on the basis of color, race, sex, religion, and ethnicity. However, there is not a single word about attractiveness or the absence of such being a protectable category provided by the law. This is not to say that it is illegitimate employing people on the principle of attractiveness in the USA. The unlawful decision may be litigated with provision that the claim of appearance discrimination can be tied to a discrimination category provided for by the Civil Rights Act and converted into a legally persecuted discrimination, allowing a person to take a legal action against a company and arraign a defendant (Cavico, Muffler, & Mujtaba, 2012).
Such best-case scenario implies that a person may get an indemnity for an unlawful termination. To put an example, if a claimant is 40 years of age and was denied employment on the principle of beautism, then he or she may bring an action against a company for hiring a more attractive applicant provided that the employee is younger. Post- pregnancy termination due to weight reasons may be reason enough to take the matter to court (McDonald, 2010). Reclassifying a legal claim may be a genuine loophole in American employment legislation that is short of civil rights, as of now. This notwithstanding, Americans may come to lobby a limitation raising bill through Congress. According to McDonald (2010), if put into force, laws may be hackneyed by employees who seek to shift blame for their professional incompetence on their appearance.
Beautism as College Employment Principle
In a situation when a chairperson overlooked a qualified employee only to choose a less competent albeit attractive applicant there may be different interpretations as to whether or not employing a less qualified person was a right decision to make. It was sorely unprofessional and unbecoming of the chairperson to miss a skilful worker. Staffing a college by employees who can give it a marketable look is an unnecessary strategic decision. College is not the place where the beauty of seductive employees may make a decision for an applicant. There is no need for beauty to reason young career-oriented ambitious individuals into entering these establishments since their decision is firm and neither young man nor woman is capable of changing this mindset. If so, employment chairpersons’ main task is to ensure college financial stability by hiring qualified staff. It is only by qualified staff that college may attract more students, money and subsidies from government. Those failing to provide a large number of people with much needed services will cause a reversal effect. If a chairperson, whether due to bribery, personal preference, mood, or family issues, hires unqualified staff, then professional incompetence is the case. He or she may be up for termination or, alternatively, the performance of day-to-day duties may be under review.
Putting the chairperson under probation and formal reprimand being recorded in personal file are viable options. Taking disciplinary actions is a must-make move in that frittering valuable human assets, showing favoritism and personal preferences do not contribute to an internal discipline, much less produce money and make a financial entity, such as college, a competitive player on the market of educational services. It is also necessary that hiring staff report to the top management about the incident because it is unlikely to impose any penalty on the chair, without receiving formal authorization. The principle of corporate responsibility should be central to any organization; hence, the entire committee’s involvement is paramount. Of course, it depends on where the incident took place since the better part of states do not have antidiscrimination laws that protect from appearance employment prejudices. With no protective legislation and employment at-will doctrine, the law may be clearly on the chairperson’s side.
Apart from dealing with professional sabotage committed by the chairperson, the committee needs to negotiate with both the employed and the overlooked employee. As far as the newly-accepted employee is concerned, his or her early termination is not a lawful move, without giving the person a chance to prove incompetent. Giving this story an improper resonance through a possible media coverage as well as letting a low-qualified employee occupy an important public relations office is out of question. So blatant a violation must be investigated internally. That the unqualified person needs to be terminated on compromise terms is a rigid must to avoid criminal proceedings that could be brought against college by the overlooked applicant. With that in mind, what hiring committee ought to do is approach a person on termination by a mutual agreement to avoid a forced resignation.
While in talks, the hiring committee may suggest a decent payoff known as a golden handshake. Much as it is uncompromising, hiring committee may decide on changing work conditions, such as relegation and assignment to menial tasks, of the employee to be replaced, so that he or she will quit of own free will. Since the person who needs replacing is low-qualified, he or she may be assigned with an adequate standard task the employer will not be able to handle for want of knowledge and expertise. In this case, resume fraud may be the case for as much as qualifications and professional abilities recorded in resume is out of accord with actual professional skills and competence.
Conclusions
Beautism or lookism is a prejudice against employees based on their appearance – that is to say, employees that are more appealing are the first in line for employment and promotion. Minding this marketable approach oriented on American society, employers try to sell merchandise and services on customers by harnessing seductive external attributes of their employees who allegedly represent the entire brand. In doing so, they risk losing exciting prospects in overlooked applicants. These are qualified individuals who have that special something and can talk clients into buying production or using specific services. Instead, employers sometimes come to terminate less appealing workers using this nothing-personal-it-is-strictly-business approach. Protection from this discriminatory action is legally provided for only by a handful of states while most employees abide by the employment at-will doctrine that allows unexplained premature termination unless otherwise stipulated. Beauty does have a magic power over customers; however, this is a good case in point when it comes to selling goods and separate services, not knowledge that needs neither marketable sensation, nor good-looking salespersons to make would-be students buy into their hype.
References
Cavico, F.J., Muffler, S.C., & Mujtaba, B.G. (2012 September/October). Appearance discrimination, “lookism” and “lookphobia” in the workplace. The Journal of Applied Business Research, 28(5). 791-802. Retrieved from: http://www.google.com.ua/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CDsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fjournals.cluteonline.com%2Findex.php%2FJABR%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F7223%2F7293&ei=t-zwUsrxNePnygPOz4CYBA&usg=AFQjCNGQ0skwdI08ZdaK9vHmcbLrn7uSDg&bvm=bv.60444564,d.bGQ
McDonald, J.J., (2010). “Lookism: the Next Form of Illegal Discrimination.” Bloomberg Finance. Law Reports. Retrieved from: http://www.laborlawyers.com/files/26956_fisher_phillips_mcdonald_article.pdf
Tietje, L. & Cresap, S. (2005). Is lookism unjust? The ethics of aesthetics and public policy implications. Journal of Libertarian Studies, 19(2). 31-50. Retrieved from: http://direct.mises.org/journals/jls/pdf/JLS19_2_2.pdf
