Remedy Discrimination When Hiring Women and Minorities

Remedy Discrimination When Hiring Women and Minorities

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Remedy Discrimination When Hiring Women and Minorities

Introduction

In many organizations, women discrimination has been a major problem especially when hiring employees. This causes gender imbalance at the workplaces and poor performance since some who are locked out of employment are productive human resources. Discrimination against minorities, means certain employees are treated differently or are not hired at all simply because they belong to a particular race, sub-tribe or any other classification. Policies like  affirmative action programs, reverse discrimination and criteria of comparable worth help eliminate discrimination. These remedy policies have helped organizations eliminate discrimination, but each one has its own shortcomings which make them inappropriate.

In my argument, I disagree with the statement that affirmative action programs, reverse discrimination and criteria of comparable worth are appropriate forms of remedy. (Fischel, 1986) founded that, in each case, both the society and the organizations are incurring costs. For example, in the case of comparable worth, some members of the society, especially women, are hindered from employment opportunities as the organizations incur an extra cost of salary equality. According to  (Remick, 1985), this criteria leads to economic inefficiency.

Affirmative action is an important tool in eliminating discrimination in work places. This is because it provides all qualified individuals with equal access to professional opportunities. (Bollinger, 2003). It also remedies past discrimination, promotes diversity in our society and eliminates present day discrimination. The technology is highly growing, to keep up with this, exposure to widely diverse culture, ideas, people and viewpoints is needed (DiTomaso, 2004). On the other hand, affirmative action can lead to reverse discrimination that eventually triggers comparable worth as the organization tries to equalize pay. Reverse discrimination has no moral justification because, it actually increases the incidence of discrimination. This shows a chain of events whereby a remedy becomes a cause of discrimination hence the problem remains unsolved.

Other remedies that would be more appropriate compared to the three discussed can be used to eliminate discrimination at work places. For example, adding objectivity to the hiring process by having more than one person conduct the interviews. This can also be done by using a core list of questions to screen candidates by assigning numerical ratings. Companies should invest in assessment systems to ensure equality in the professional skills of candidates hired for each task. This ensures there is no minority discrimination since the candidates pass the assessments randomly.

Job posting is also another policy that can help eliminate discrimination when hiring employees. This means that job openings are posted in different mediums and venues to attract a wide scope of interested job seekers and passive candidates. By reaching a broad audience, the company is able to get a diversified list of candidates that would be screened through assessment systems. Job post should also be posted internally to give current employees a chance to advance in their career.

Job analyses can be used to remedy discrimination by avoiding categorizing of roles according to gender. This provides equal access to all job types for both men and women including the executive roles. Job placement and hiring data should be monitored to ensure that no positions are biased. Regular meetings between the staff, human resource managers and top leadership should be held to shed light to any obstacles hindering employees’ performance.

References

Bollinger, V. (2003). Supreme Court Majority Opinion. Washington, DC. CQ press.

DiTomaso, N. (2004). Diversity in the Workforce. Amsterdam. Oxford Publishers.

Fischel, D. & Lazear, E.  (1986). Comparable Worth and Discrimination in Labor Market. Philadelphia: Princeton University Press

Remick, H. (1985). Comparable Worth and Wage Discrimination. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.