Managing Equality and Diversity at Work - Essay Example

MANAGING EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY AT WORK Name Institution Date Equal opportunities policies have reduced discrimination at work Equal employment rights policies are all about respect and diversity, freedom from harassment and discrimination, good people management, merit selection and more so focussing on the essential principle of the job requirements (State Governance Victoria 2011). The core role of using equal employment policies in organization is aimed at reducing the rate of discrimination through valuing and recognising the community diversity, enabling the attraction of the best skills from a wide talent by outsourcing them to work in the organization as well (State Governance Victoria, 2011). Through offering equal opportunities in job community members will not be discriminated hence forth they will be in the fore front in realising their employment potentials with the organizations (Barbara 2009). Discrimination has been reducing significantly due to the impact the equal employment opportunity policies has enumerated (Human rights commission 2014). Equal opportunity encourages a diverse workforce and organization to reflect on the broader diversity as stated in the Victorian community as a Victorian and commonwealth legislation. According to this legislation every human being in the workforce has the responsibilities and rights under the anti-discriminatory and equal opportunity legislations (Equality Commission for Northern Ireland 2009). The major objective of this legislation is to ensure that employees are treated as individuals, not to be excluded but to be respected for their unique attributes, bullied or harassed through unconsciousness bias, unlawful actions or stereotypes that will lead to discrimination at the organization. This legislation therefore brought control of activity to ensure discrimination of communities is not practised during employment contracting (Government Equalities Office 2010). Discrimination at workplace should not be tolerated at all since it promotes inequality and also it is destructive (Maplecroft 2010). The organization should reflect and respect the rights of employees through offering equal employment opportunities in the work environment that will not discriminate individuals on the base of age, gender, religion, origin, disability or any other characteristic affiliation an individual is subjected too (Maplecroft 2010). The policy of equal employment was implemented and brought forward mainly to ensure organization do not discriminate against individuals, to deal with disciplinary actions and harassment issues and also diversity and equal opportunities (VicHealth 2014). Practising of equal employment policies in organization facilitates and encourages the implementation and development of responsible business activities in the organization (VicHealth 2014). Through recognition of the destructive impact discrimination in the workplace it will offer a good field to provide an effective understanding of the equal opportunity of being a fair employer to practise diversity and equal opportunities that will eradicate discrimination in job areas (Karen, Judith and John 2010). According to the report on the first global report on elimination on employment discrimination, there developed fundamental rights and principles with the main message that will help in the effective process of eliminating discrimination practises in work places (International labour office (ILO) 2007). Creation of more equal societies had to be the central goal of development policies and paradigms, the promotion of equal opportunities for decent work irrespective of gender, age or any affiliation that is discriminatory in nature should not be practised (The U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 2014). These employment equality policies have shaded some lime light towards decreasing the level of discrimination in workforce that has been effectively up-to-date (International Labour Office (ILO) 2007). Challenges faced by employers when adopting an anti-discriminatory approach to age in a workplace Employers have been faced up with a stiff measure which is a challenge into their daily business activities (NATFHE 2013). Employers are therefore to think wise in relation to their workforce demographics and consider various options on how and where to advertise their open positions in their organizations (NATFHE 2013). The regulations and laws governing the workforce has constantly been changing hence employers should adopt into them so as not to get themselves into troubles by not implanting the changes (Sargeant 1999). For example, the use of relatives and friends to find a new hire is good but the employer faces a potential risk of ending up with skewed age discrimination (Tom 2013). Therefore employers are faced up with a challenge in advertising their position in their organizations for fear or age discrimination (Sargeant 1999). Employers on the other hand are on a critical level in measuring the degree of harm to individuals whom are in the protected age group, both in terms of the extent of the number of people being affected and injury that needs the employer to take effective steps to ensure harm is minimised in the organization (Bloch 1994). This is a major challenge pending the increased level of harm by using certain age members in the organization that pose risks in having them hence employers sometimes they have to select an effective age group they can work up with within any harm in the organization (Finkelsten, Burke and Raju1995). By practising this they will be going against the legislation on age discrimination as opposed they should adopt it. Employers have been asked to remove age and date of birth questions that are used for documentation, interviewing and assessing people (David 2008). The use of these details provides a discrimination ground by determination of age (David 2008). Employers have been therefore asked to use separate diversity monitoring forms that will help them record and gather age related data that will be kept by the human resource (HR) department as part of the overall diversity and equality monitoring processes (Kate 2012). The challenge employer facing here is that they should not base their selection processes on age basis hence they should recruit any individual without discriminating them on age basis (Trades Union Congress (TUC) 2003). It does not give an employer to select the effective age of recruit they needs in their organizations (Kate 2012). All employees regardless of their age must be given the same benefits and rights related to redundancy and unfair dismissal as one of the subject to an upper age limit (Allan 2013). The challenge poised to the employers here is that, employers do not have a right to discriminate any individuals in their organization upon contracting a job opportunity on the basis age or nay other discriminatory component (Fredman and Spencer 2003). Since employers have been subjected to equal employment opportunities that are free from age discriminatory, it gives them a setback in choosing the pool of employees they want to associate up with (Fredman and Spencer 2003). Employers would choose a certain age group that would be efficient and effective working with them, but the adoption of the age discrimination equality legislation has corrected this impact and shaded a limelight towards employing equality in job opportunities (Allan 2013). References Allan, C 2013, Age Diversity and Ageism, Business Balls, available 25 November 2014, . Barbara, B 2009, Understanding equal Opportunities and Diversity: The social differentiations and Intersections of Inequality, Bristol, Social policy Association press. Bloch, F 1994, Anti-discrimination law and minority employment, Chicago, IL, university of Chicago press. David, N 2008, The Age Discrimination in Employment act and the challenge of population aging, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge. Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, 2009, A Unified Guide to Promoting Equal Opportunities in Employment, Belfast. Finkelsten, L, Burke, J and Raju, S 1995, Age Discrimination in Simulated Employment Contexts: an integrated analysis, Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 80, no. 1, pp. 652-663. Fredman, S and Spencer, S 2003, Age as an Equality Issue: Legal and Policy Perspectives, Hart, oxford publishers. Government Equalities Office, 2010, Creating a fairer and more equal Society, Department For Education, available 18 August 2014, . Human rights commission, 2014, Preventing Discrimination in Workplace, available 25 November 2014, . International labour office (ILO), 2007, Equality at work: Tackling the Challenges, International Labour Conference, Geneva. Karen, K, Judith, R and John, W 2010, Equal opportunities and Ethnic equality in European labour markets: Discrimination, gender and policies of Diversity, Amsterdam, Amsterdam university press. Kate, V. D 2012, New ruling challenges Employers to defend against Age Discrimination claims, Legal guest blog, available 25 November 2014,. Maplecroft, 2010, Discrimination and Equal Opportunity Policy, available 25 November 2014, . NATFHE, 2013, Challenging Age Discrimination, A NATFHE policy document, the university and college lecturers union. Sargeant, M 1999, Age Discrimination in Employment, Institute for Employment Rights, London. State Governance Victoria, 2011, Equal opportunity, Discrimination and Harassment, Department of Education and early Childhood Development, Human Resources. The U.S equal employment opportunity commission, 2014, Employers best practices for workers with caregiving responsibilities, available 25 November 2014, . Tom, J 2013, Employers face growing threat of Systematic Discrimination cases, aim blog, available 25 November 2014, . Trades Union Congress (TUC) 2003, Consultation on new rights prohibiting Age Discrimination in Employment and Training, London. VicHealth, 2014, Equal Employment Opportunity Policy, available 25 November 2014, . Read More