Practice of Race Discrimination at the Workplace - Research Paper Example

Race discrimination Table of contents Race discrimination 1 Table of contents 1 Background 2 Statement of the problem 2 Objectives of the race discrimination study 3 Hypothesis for testing 4 Significance of race discrimination study 5 Limitations of implementing race discrimination policies 6 Conceptual framework for race discrimination 7 Policies on race discrimination 8 Literature review on racial discrimination 9 Employers’ conduct that fuels race discrimination 9 Employees conduct that fuel race discrimination 11 Racial interaction at work place 11 Hiring procedures that fuel race discrimination 13 Job promotion procedures and race discrimination 14 Perspective of the law on race discrimination 15 Race discrimination and customer base 15 EEOC remedies to race discrimination 16 Digital age and race discrimination 16 Conclusion 17 Recommendations 18 Bibliography 18 Background During the fiscal year 2007, the United States equal employment opportunity commission (EEOC) received 30, 510 charges that were linked to racial discrimination at work places. This reflected a 12% increase in racial based cases. This shows that race discrimination is on the rise. Although the EEOC chair, Naomi C. Earp, launched the EEOC E-race initiative on 28th February 2007, as a national outreach campaign against race discrimination in workplaces, the education campaigns to minimize race discrimination at work place were not affected. It is like the establishment and eventual launch of E-race magnified the trend on race discrimination. In the fiscal year 2007, EEOC resolved 25,882 racial based cases and recovered benefits to the tune of US $ 67.7 millions. These benefits are not part of monetary benefits that resulted through litigation processes. Statement of the problem Work places have increasingly turned into sites where racial discrimination is practiced with impunity. Race discrimination has made promotion opportunities to be biased. Promotions, recruitment and hiring of new staff at workplaces is not determined by merit or qualification of the candidates but are based on racial relations and how well the candidate is networked across the race of the employer. Job opportunities have turned out to be award schemes for loyalty to racial warlords in order to empower a particular race financially. In many third world countries, many employers belong to the same race and therefore, the chances of a candidate being employed depend on the relationships that the candidate or a family of the candidate has with the employer. This in turn has led to massive withdrawal of qualified individuals to other countries where their qualifications are identified and are able to get employed without strings attached. This leads to drain of manpower that could be used to develop a country. It is also a loss to the country and the universities or colleges that fund education of the bright students only to end up serving in foreign countries. Race discrimination does not provide a fair and level ground for competition and this leads into hiring of individuals or candidates who do not meet minimum qualifications for the positions. Race discrimination at work places provides an environment where a company has no promotion policies that govern procedures for promotion opportunities. In companies where race discrimination is rampant, there is no job description that is available for either senior company executives or their assistants like the managers or assistant managers. Similarly, training opportunities at work places where race discrimination exists are not awarded to candidates who qualify for them. The practice of race discrimination does not conform to specification of equity at work place and is against the law of any land. Objectives of the race discrimination study To determine factors that fuel race discrimination at work places To evaluate impacts of race discrimination to the economic growth and development of a company To investigate guidelines that an employer must follow to abide by procedures for hiring, recruiting or promoting members of staff in the work place To look into the perspective of the law on racial discrimination To evaluate legal procedures in place to curb spread of race discrimination in the work place and how employers are positioned to abide by the rules and regulations governing recruitment, hiring and promotion of members of staff at work place. Hypothesis for testing If employers had clear guidelines on promotions based on merit, qualifications and experience, there would be harmony and good working relations in the work place. If employers provided job descriptions for different positions like managers, departmental assistant managers and supervisors, every employee would deliver duties according to responsibilities that are outlined in his or her job description and there would be no cases of overstepping into other employees responsibilities. If employers do not seek employees of a particular race from employment bureaus or agencies, there employer would be provided with employees of different races and help to foster good relations of employees across races. If there are no racial groups in the work place, there would be more co-operations between employees and this would lead into productive and health work relations based on mutual trust. If there was no race discrimination at work place, employers would not be losing huge money as they pay compensation for employees that are sacked under questionable circumstances or the company would not suffer loses through reduced share trading following media reports that the company practices race discrimination. Significance of race discrimination study The study on race discrimination will make employers to have written promotion policies that ensure any internal promotion is made according to guidelines of promotions and that the process is carried out fairly. The written policies on promotion of employees should provide a level playing ground for all employees to have equal opportunity based on their experience and qualifications. The study will make employers to have job description for all employees in the work place so that there is no conflict of interest that can bring about misunderstandings like a given employee is overstepping on responsibilities of others. The job description of employees will provide employees with powers of disseminating their duties without fear of being oppressed for incompetence or on racial grounds. This too should be aligned to measure to the qualifications that the position demands. The study will provide guidelines that employers should embrace on training opportunities of employees. The employers will understand that training opportunities should be awarded on merit and to individuals in the company who deserve training either in class or on the job training. There should also be written guidelines on who qualify for the schemes for training programs in the work place. The study will make employers understand legal aspects of practicing race discrimination at the work place. The study will bring about development of ethics and conduct policies that employers and employees should adopt in order to minimize race discrimination at work place. Limitations of implementing race discrimination policies Many companies are owned by families or developed as a business venture of a family. Other companies are branches of family owned businesses and the employer prefers to have own members of the family at the senior positions I order for them to understand aspects of management. This practice (Kamau) is meant to ensure there is inheritance of management fortfolio in the company. Many promotions opportunities in family owned businesses (Tanner and Bailey) or companies are award schemes to employees who have been loyal to the company and management. The candidates are promoted in order to foster development of attitudes of work that are associated with the particular employee (Tanner and Bailey). Many work places are dominated (Kamau) by employees who belong to the same race or tribe. The employer does not hire employees across races. If an employee who does not belong to the same race as the other happens to be recruited or hired, even if the employee is on internship or attachment, the efforts of the new employee are frustrated by the large number of employee and this leads into either withdrawal of the employee from the work or termination of services of the employee (Kamau: Wicker). Employment agencies and recruiters may fail to satisfy any recommendations for addressing racial discrimination because an employer may request only employees from certain race from the employment bureau or agency (Kamau). This may make the employment to do accordingly in order to be in a position to get future services from the same company. The current work place is dominated by managers or assistant managers from the same race therefore the law on training opportunities will not have any positive impact on the current crop of senior persons in companies (Kamau: Lesak: Wicker). Conceptual framework for race discrimination Many companies delegate the task of hiring employees to employment agencies (MPND) or employment bureaus that have a database of employees seeking jobs. The employment agencies provide employees to the concerned employer according to his or her guidelines. If it is employees from a particular race, the employment bureau searches through its database and fulfills the required specifications (Paton). The recruited employees take command at various positions in the company and when promotions opportunities arise, they are given preference (Paton). The racial factor undermines the competent experienced employees who have been in the company for long and others who have remained in the same grade for long. Policies on race discrimination Title VII of the civil rights Act of 1964 protects employees and candidates seeking employment from being discriminated on grounds of race, color, national origin, sex or religion. Title VII of the civil rights Act of 1964 applies to all employers’ either in one of the following disciplines namely employment agencies and bureaus, labor organizations and federal governments. According to Title VII of the civil rights Act of 1964, a qualified candidate to any job that has been advertised or promotion opportunity that has risen in the work place, should not be denied the opportunity to serve at the company because the candidate or employee belongs to a particular racial group or the candidate or employee has associations with certain racial group, individuals or possible features like hair color, hair texture, body color or relations with another person of a particular race. Title VII of the civil rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment decisions that are founded on assumptions of an individual’s ability, characteristics or any form of stereotype. Title VII of the civil rights Act of 1964 recommends that it is against the law to discriminate any potential employee for either promotion or recruitment depending on work load, measurements of performance of the candidate, work environment of the candidate, discipline and discharge of duties and award guidelines for wages or monetary benefits of the employee. Literature review on racial discrimination Many employees in many companies are denied promotions on basis of their racial color, religion, national origin, sex, race and association with individuals of a particular race (Lesak). In many companies, employees who are hired belong to a particular race. Many companies that have racial discrimination do not have job description for their employees. The employees are recruited or hired without any consideration on their qualification or experience (Omolo and Wafula). Many work places are characterized by presence of racial group that form social groups outside the work place. Presence of race groups in the work place greatly lowers the level of work relations and productivity of employees (Omolo and Wafula). Employers’ conduct that fuels race discrimination Many employers (Quinn) do not have well defined procedures for recruiting employees, hiring candidates for positions that are vacant or promotions protocols to govern ascension of positions at the company. This becomes an opportunity for employees of the same race to bring only their own into the company to take up positions (Kamau). The proposal by loyal employee of an employee who could easily fill into the shoes of the task makes the employer not to have any policies or job description for different crucial positions in the management of the company. Many employers undermine their employees for incompetence (MPND) when the employees do not even have a clear cut job description for their jobs. The employees do not have any measure of performance of duties and are always under conflict with the employer for overstepping their responsibilities that are not actually there (Paton). Many employers do not sign a contract form with their employees (MPND). The employees do not know what they are supposed to do in the work place but perform tasks as directed by the employer. In many instances, the employees are transferred to other branches in order to pave way for a race conforming employee to take charge of the position. The transferred employee moves into the new assignment without knowing their job description or what their tasks are in the new branch of service (MPND). Many employers do not have any procedures in place for employees to go on training. Training opportunities are given only to race aligned employees (Paton) without seeking to know the requirements of the training or why the company may require the new training. Training opportunities should be based on need of special skills on the current crop of managers or employees and selection should be based on employees who have relevant qualifications for the task (MPND). Many employers do not support training of black African Americans on the job or sponsor their education in local university. Well developed companies provide up to date training to their employees and this is not only a sign of corporate responsibility but it is also a sign of giving back to the community by developing a future staff with skills that would make the company to navigate through challenges of market survival (Quinn: Paton). Many employers do not have grading system of their employees and when the grading system is there, the employee are not promoted but remain in the same grade for long (Paton). Any promotion of an employee who is not from the race of the employer is met with the challenge of more work load for the same pay (Quinn). Many employees who do not belong to the race of the employer are not given an opportunity to have any education program at work or after work. Such employers terminate the services of employees who take part time classes because they think such an employee is likely to leave the company on completing their courses (Quinn). Employees conduct that fuel race discrimination Behavioral attitudes of employees at work place can lead into development of racial discrimination. This results from the following employees conduct Racial interaction at work place Employees tend to associate (Wicker) themselves with member of their own race. A new employee into a company seeks advice from an employee of the same race. This leads into development of racial groups in the work place. Presence of racial groups in the work place leads into development of jealousy among the racial groups (MPND). The racial group that belongs to the employer has more power than the other racial groups. Formation of rules and regulations follows presence of racial groups on the conduct of employees and in many instances, the rules and regulations governing existence of such small bodies in the work place are not in favor of the races that are not the race of the employer (MPND). The weaker racial groups may be subjected to higher work load in order to discourage their presence in the work place. More work load means the employees are not able to complete their duties and they can be sacked after performance measurements are done (MPND). In many work places, races that belong to the employer occasionally discuss effects of strategies that the company may be implementing (Omolo and Wafula). The racial employee may report work place views on success or limitation of a strategy as sabotage to the success of the company. This development may negatively affect the perception of employer of employees that belong to the employee being victimized and may have a long term effect of termination of services of the employees (Quinn). Recommendations of the racial group that has access to the employer, although their meetings or social interaction is initially casual, may develop into a forum of discussion of other employee’s competence. This provides an avenue for termination of services of employees who are not ready to be victimized. In this way, employees end up participating less in focus discussion groups and this withdrawal of employees from participating in providing solutions or proposing solutions to problems negatively growth of company (Quinn: Wicker). Incidences of racial discrimination have been reported where a member of the influential race to the employer may pick a key secretly from another employee and immediately conduct the employer of possible planned theft or robbery in the premises. The employee’s concerns for the lost key makes him or her to report the missing key to the employer. In such circumstances, the employer is made to understand the loss of keys is linked with the reported crime and sacks the employee. The employer may assume other employees of the same race as the sacked employee to have had knowledge of the theft or robbery and took no measures to prevent occurrence of the same. This can lead to gradual sacking of employees without any reason (Quinn). Employees have tendency of talking ill about others in the work place. This is usually as a pastime joke but employees who belong to the race of the employer may take the jokes to be very different. Racial humor about the history of a given race may be taken as an insult to the race of the employer and breed a bad seed of relations (Omolo & Wafula). Hiring procedures that fuel race discrimination Some employers have preference for a given race. The race may have powerful influential people that positively can lead into the growth of the company. The objective of the company to tap the benefit of the market by using employees who might have access to the clients may prompt the employer to ask for employees from the employment agencies who are able to meet the demand. Therefore the employment bureau or agency may only provide the employees that the employer wants and this is done without looking into qualifications. Some companies put this right when they are orienting employees, ‘we have standards and protocols that govern out operations. We respect who we are…’ (Omolo & Wafula) Many employment bureaus or agencies practice race discrimination and favor their own to fill vacant positions. They give first priority to members of their own race. This is evident in the databases of employees that have got employment through the employment agencies. Many of the candidates are members of the same race as the employment agency (Omolo & Wafula). Job promotion procedures and race discrimination Many employers do not have procedures and guidelines for carrying out any promotion of senior positions in the work place. Many employers do not advertise vacant positions of senior positions. These positions are reserved for members of the same race as the employer. In many companies, there may be only assistant manager who delivers the tasks of manager under acting capacity. The vacant position may have been reserved for a child who is still in school (Kamau). Some other senior positions are reserved for members of the employer’s race who join the company as interns or attaché’s and take on the positions when they are seasoned enough to take up the challenges of the position (Kamau). Perspective of the law on race discrimination The law provides that it is against an employment rights for any person, regardless of race, to be denied an opportunity in the work place. It is unlawful to determine job seekers competence with respect to their color, religion or racial background (Chen & Palmer). An employer, who practices such a vice, contravenes procedures of recruitment, hiring, transfer of employees or guidelines for measuring efficiency of an employee (Joseph). The law gives victimized employees powers to seek compensation by reporting incidences of race discrimination to the organizations that work towards reducing race discrimination in the work place like EEOC (Hobbard, Thomas, & Vamham). Race discrimination and customer base Media report that particular company practices race discrimination negatively affects the growth of the company. Customers may fail to be associated with companies that do not put human values at the forefront of their operations. Customers may fail to purchase products of the company and the company may loose good will of its customers (Lesak). Reports that a company practices race discrimination can instantly lead to decrease of its share value at share trading markets. This becomes a great loss to the company (Tanner & Bailey). Race discrimination makes certain companies to sell their products to clients or wholesalers or retailers or supermarkets owned by members of their own race. in the spirit of promoting their race, many companies give members of the race the first priority as distributors of their products (Tanner & Bailey). Such a practice can make a company to have a small or wide customer base depending on the buying potential of the clients. EEOC remedies to race discrimination The chair of EEOC, Naomi C. Earp, on February, 28th 2007, led a launching ceremony of Equal employment opportunity commission E-race initiative dumped eradicating racism and colorism from employment. E-race is a national outreach program that is geared towards educating employers and employees on modalities of reducing race discrimination in the work place. E-race also focuses on enforcing campaigns on new and emerging races or color related issues that characterize work places in the 21st century. E-race also works towards making federal laws to prohibit development of racial employment discrimination. Digital age and race discrimination With evolution of digital technology, the world has become a global village. This revolution has to partnership of companies and franchising entities. The opportunities for franchising companies help to bring people of different races together and provide a framework for addressing racial discrimination (Quinn). Many employees have turned into working from their own homes. This at least minimizes racial discrimination that has become so common in the work place. Work from home ensures the employee may outsource the same work that they used to do for the company (Tanner & Bailey). Online trading and transaction is also another way forward to eradicating race discrimination in the work place. Conclusion There is need for employers and employees to embrace the spirit of oneness, as human assets in the production and forge for unity in the work place. Employees need to understand there is need for partnership in the work place. Employees should understand ethics that foster co-operation and practice them. Employees should refrain from race groups that may affect productivity of the company. Employers should ensure there guidelines that state procedures for promotion and recruitment with corresponding minimum qualification for every positions. Employers should also have job description for every position to ensure right candidates apply for the positions but also to avoid overstepping of responsibilities. Recommendations Employers should provide equal access to training of all employees in senior positions like unit managers or their assistants without priorities being dispensed on racial grounds. Employers should establish job descriptions for managers and their assistants and other job positions based on minimum qualifications for the jobs. Employers should ensure there are written guidelines to show steps that should be followed when a promotion opportunity is announced to when the right candidate I chosen. Employees should understand the importance of good ethical communication and relations in the work place and should work towards fostering good work relations, working together and making consultations across races. Bibliography Chen, Mai and Geoffrey Palmer. Public LAw in New Zealand: Cases, Materials, commentary and Questions. Auckland: oxford University Press, 1993. Hobbard, Jerry, Cordela Thomas and Sally Vamham. Principles of Law in New Zealand Business. Auckland: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999. Joseph, Phillip Austin. Constitutional and Administrative Law in New Zealand. Sydney: Law Book Company, 1993. Kamau, R.M. "The Family business." Parallax 1.2 (1989): 11-12. Lesak, D. ""operational decision making"." fire engineering 142 (1989): 63-69. MPND. Economic recovery strategy for wealth and employment creation 2003-2007 (ERSWEC). Nairobi: Government printing office, 2003. —. Investment programme for the economic recovery strategy for wealth creation and employment creation 2003-2007 (revised). Nairobi: Ministry of planning and national development, February 2003. Omolo, T.O. and R. N. Wafula. "Failing Recruiting Systems Fueling Inefficiency." Market Roads 1.(3) (1975): 17-19. Paton, D. "Training disaster Workers: Promoting Well-Being and operational effectiveness." 5.4 (1996): 10-16. Quinn, M.J. Ethics of The Information Age. 2nd edition. USA: Addison Wesley, 2006. Smyth, R. ""Exploring the Usefulness of a Conceptual Framework as a Research tool: a Researcher's Reflection." Issues in Educational Research 14.(2) (2004): 167-180. Tanner, J. and G. Bailey. "Staff rostering in the operating department." Br. J Perioper Nurs. 11:.(5) (2001): 228-35, 235. Wicker, P. "Recruitment and retention. Apersonal issue." Br. J. Theatre Nurs. 9:.(2) (1999): 17-26. Read More