Managing Diversity and Equal Opportunity - Essay Example

?Topic- Managing diversity & equal opportunity Question You work as an HR manager of an organization and have recently been made aware of a situation, which has made employees in your department very upset. This is regarding the numerous complaints you have received about a staff member, who is being racially offensive towards individuals of non-white ethnic origins. Due to the extremity of harassment, a few members of your department have asked for transfer to another department as they are in constant fear of being intimidated. However, when approached about the current situation, the alleged employee argues that these individuals have never expressed their concerns and beliefs during work hours or otherwise. Provide a list of actions you would need to take as a manager to resolve this issue and also justify your answer. Introduction: Diversity is concerned with recognizing and valuing difference in cultures and ethnicities in the broadest sense. The thing that matters here is to create a working culture and related practices that recognize, respect, value and harness differences for the benefit of the organization as well as the individuals. Trust is an equal opportunities employer, which means that it is the Trust’s policy that there should be no discrimination, harassment, unfair treatment or victimization of any employee, job applicant, customer, provider of services or member of the public, neither directly nor indirectly on the grounds of race, nationality, gender, gender reassignment, marital or family status. Equality means creating a fairer society where everyone can participate and each individual has the opportunity to fulfill his or her potential. It is backed by legislations designed to address unfair discrimination based on membership of a particular group. Body: As an HR manager it is my responsibility and so I have the right to stop and prevent harassment and discrimination. Some of the ways in which I can fulfill my task is as follows: Supporting management by developing center policy and procedures for preventing and stopping ill and unfair treatment. Educating staff, particularly through induction and retraining, including specialized training for line managers. Helping the management to establish avenues of assistance at all duty stations for staff members who have experienced harassment or discrimination. Providing direct support and guidance to people involved in such issues Providing guidance to committees investigating harassment and discrimination complaints. Under the current situation, I have come to notice that in the organization some employees in my department are indeed upset, and I have found the reason to be an employee who is racially offensive towards individuals of non-white ethnic origins and discriminated as well as harasses them. As an HR manager, I am responsible for eradicating discrimination and harassment, which is the key to establishing a work place of dignity. To facilitate such an environment, I will ensure that All new appointees, including contractors and consultants, particularly, line managers and supervisors have relevant policies explained to them as part of their induction, early at the time of appointment. Appropriate retraining is given to the workforce from time to time, staffs are reinforced to understand the purpose, ramifications and implications for sustaining a workplace of dignity. Line managers receive specialized training on harassment and discrimination issues as they are the first line of defense and, therefore, must be made thoroughly aware of harassment and discrimination issues. They must act as role models, be alert to the emergence of such mistreatment problems in their workgroup and be aware of their responsibilities as they are empowered to act expeditiously and appropriately. It is my duty to solve this problem and as a solution, I would brief the alleged employee to stop his discrimination and to concentrate on the work assigned to him. If he still fails to understand the need to treat his colleagues with respect and realize what they feel when he mistreats them, then I would recommend for training, which would help him to avoid such behavior and to create a good environment so that he can work as a team with the other employees to achieve the organizational goals as well as his individual targets. It is my duty to support and guide to people directly involved in harassment and discrimination issues: HR managers are usually the ultimate source for expert advice and guidance on harassment and discrimination issues in their centers. They need to acknowledge the center’s policy on such issues but they possess an understanding of harassment and discrimination beyond the policies themselves. I would be alert to potential harassment and discrimination issues and act appropriately, either directly or through the respective line managers. They must also be able to be impartial and give advice to people involved in such cases, both complainants and alleged offenders. Victims of harassment in particular may need support and reassurance about the Center’s policy and procedures as well as assurance of confidentiality. I would identify appropriate sources of professional counseling for victims in every duty station. Question 2 Explain the categories in which compensation is allocated for unlawful discrimination. In addition, analyze in detail what is victimization at the workplace and clearly state a minimum of three case examples of victimization to support your answer. Unlawful discrimination means treating a person unfairly regarding elements like sex, marital status, pregnancy, family responsibilities, sexuality, race, disability, political or religious belief, and even age. It can be of the two following forms: Direct discrimination is mistreating someone because of one or more of the attributes mentioned above and is determined through comparisons with how others have been treated in similar circumstances. Indirect discrimination happens when there is a policy, a rule or a way of doing things, that might appear to be fair or neutral on the surface, but in reality have an unequal effect on certain groups of people because of their sex, marital status, age, pregnancy, sexuality, impairment, or race. Harassment comprises of any unwelcome, unsolicited, offensive, abusive, belittling or threatening behavior, directed at an individual or group because of some real or perceived attribute such as a person’s sex, sexuality, ethnicity or disability in various circumstances, which a reasonable person, considering all the situations would have anticipated that the person harassed would be offended, humiliated and intimidated. Examples of unlawful discrimination include: Offensive jokes based on a physical appearance such as sex, facial features, race, ethnicity etc. person’s sexual preference, a person’s race, sex, religion, marital status, sexuality, or physical appearance. Treating someone less favorably according to his or her religion, belief, culture or family and marital status. Mistreating an individual due to a handicap or disability he or she has as well as making fun of the person regarding his or her age. Sexual harassment concerns with any behavior of a sexual nature that one finds offensive, humiliating or intimidating. For all these kinds of unlawful discrimination, the person guilty for such unlawful discrimination is held accountable to provide compensation. For instance, research has revealed that many employers have paid more than ?4 million in compensation for unlawful discrimination in 313 cases in the year 2006. Victimization generally is regarded with the process of being victimized, that is, to make someone a victim or sacrifice. It is concerned with recurrent reprehensible or distinctly negative actions, which are directed against individual employees in an offensive manner and can result in those employees being placed outside the workplace community. Victimization of various kinds with reprehensible behavioral origin can be committed both by employees as well as the employer personally, or through his representatives. For example, adult bullying, mental violence, social rejection and harassment have come to be increasingly seen as problems occurring in professional life and here, are collectively referred to as victimization. The following are some instances of victimization: Slandering or maligning employees or their families. Deliberately withholding work-related details or supplying incorrect information of this kind. Deliberately damage or obstruct the performance of work. Instilling ostracism, boycotting or disregarding the employee. Persecution in various forms, threatening and evoking fear, degradation etc. E.g. sexual harassment. Deliberate insults, hypercritical or negative response and attitudes like ridiculing and behaving in an unfriendly manner etc. Spying on employees without their knowledge and leaking out matters regarding their personal life. Question 3 Your manager has asked you to assist in a meeting with an employee who recently suffered an injury at work. Due to the accident, the employee has limited use of her right arm and requires adjustments to her current job position as a building caretaker. Upon her medical examination provided by the company, it is said that she will face great difficulties in her daily life as well as to carry out her job tasks. However, she wants to return to work. Clearly advise the manager and the employee on the above situation. Support your answer with case examples. Returning of a wounded worker to employment is a fragile subject. Here, the employee who worked as the building caretaker has injured her right arm and now she cannot use her hand for any difficult tasks. The company’s medical examination has reported that she will face a lot of difficulties in her daily work and also she will not be able to continue her job in the company. The matter got worse as she thinks to return to work by just making some adjustments in her job so that she can continue working. Her willing keep on working has perplexed the company manager and now he is in a dilemma. She got injured while she was doing a work related task, therefore, she has to get all the treatments and expenses on behalf of the company. Many of the companies are ready to accept those employees who return to their job after a certain injury or accident. This sort of case examples operate to organize the wellbeing and treatment requirements of the offended member of staff, with the vital aim being a whole improvement and revival of the worker to his or her respective occupation. The injured lady has the provisions to get all essential remedial care needed to entirely recuperate from the injury. An injured worker can make the finest choice for his or her requirements and conditions by contrasting and differentiating the fundamentals of job as well as non-job related return to the individual’s job. Therefore, the manager has to figure out the motivation behind her return and has to thoroughly make sure if she is able to continue her job with ease and whether she would be too dependent on other employees, which would be a burden for them as well as increase time taken by them to complete their own tasks. It is the manager’s responsibility to make clear that the injured worker was admitted to hospital and remunerated through the employees’ reimbursement for their time off. The worker’s willingness to continue her job is appreciated, but she has to prove her ability to fulfill the assigned works as she did previously. It will be good if she could get the same job with just some adjustments. As she is a building caretaker, she has to engage herself in hard labor. But her current condition does not allow her to use her right arm, so she needs some alterations, which would let the company to utilize her help and she can earn money as well. Considering a case example, an employee working in a big restaurant has a job profile of serving stuff envelopes and placing post tags for his company’s advertising material. The manager of the restaurant allocated that injured worker a task of inspecting the client’s requirement for exactness. Here, the manager has lost interest in this worker as the medical examination has proved his disability. The manager only wants 100% fit employees. He is scared that the wounded employee returning to the organization might spoil the efficiency or motivation of other employees. In most of the cases, some production is better than no production, but here it is not so. The employee’s return will force the employer the requirement for overtime effort, cross training, etc. The statistics proved that the injured employees hardly ever injure themselves again as they are conscious of their potentials and practical restrictions. Question 4 Explain in detail the benefits of embracing diversity in an organization and the implications of being discriminatory towards employees in UK. Embracing impartiality and multiplicity brings out and encourages a broad series of skills and knowledge, designs and inspiration in an organization. At the same time, it has opened the opportunity for an employee to be a potential employee. Thus, equality and diversity help to discover the hidden talents in the organization, which can be utilized for the individual’s benefit and in an overall way, be advantageous for the company as well. Equality and diversity together will compel the company to act in accordance with the anti-bias legislation as well as highlight the importance of encouraging the team to increase their capacity and realize their potential, optimistically inspiring all employees and gathering the desires of an ample client foundation. The owners of various business corporations are now in a position, where they are ready to change their attitude towards the employees. These company managers are encouraged and taught different ways to intensify and enhance the equal opportunity rules and approaches into all parts of the impartiality and multiplicity guidelines with strategized tactics and accomplishment schemes that the managers, employees and other shareholders can add to and gain from. The two terms equality and diversity have a wider definition and they mean the same in every organization, whether a big multinational firm, a small company or even a sole proprietor. This big assignment makes the employee to think in better ways and also makes them to proceed according to the rules and regulations mentioned in the concerned acts, as well as make the best of the team and the business opportunities they can get. Equality is mainly concerned with the lawful responsibility to meet terms and conditions with the anti-unfairness membership. The suggestion of being prejudiced towards the UK employees also creates certain problems. The equality guards the nation from being eminent against gender, competition, disability, sexuality, religion, faith or age. The diversity provides a multiple range of distinctiveness and circumstances. It helps in reaping the best of the employees and valuing the work of the team that develops with the optimum of the employees’ talents without considering their surroundings. Diversity covers observable and non-observable personality differences. This diversity can also be identified in the team in terms of gender, it can be seen in the arrangement of employees in terms of sexual category, racial minorities, disabled citizens etc regarding situations like location of the organization, work occasion, conditions and settings in the business place. Diversity helps in the respecting individual variations as well as understanding and accepting public differences in culture, national origin, civilization, religion, political affairs, region and so on. The employees in UK are mainly from different countries, which creates a diversified environment in the workplace. This in turn causes the organizations to specially depend on diversity and equality simultaneously. As most employers are UK citizens and the employees are of foreign origin, they would have to survive and live in a cross-cultural world with an entirely different background. The customers of the UK business market also belong to diversified groups and, therefore, being discriminated towards the employees in UK creates a chance to extract profit from those kinds of people. “Different types of people bring more varied ideas and views into any company – fully harnessing the talents of all was and is vital to ensuring a company is competitive in a market where customers are diverse and expect to be served by people with whom they can identify” (Best Practice: Embracing Diversity – Guidance for Managers, 2010). Reference List Best Practice: Embracing Diversity – Guidance for Managers, 2010. [Online] Chartered Management Institute. Available at: http://www.managers.org.uk/page/best-practice-embracing-diversity-guidance-managers [Accessed 14 May 2011]. Read More