HRM Case Study on Home Depot - Essay Example

ces in which men and women were diverted to certain types of jobs based on their gender since the company believed that their productivity would be higher by placing these workers in specific areas. Home Depot separated women and men workers into two separate categories of workers. Men were given most of the floor position based on the belief that men have more general knowledge about home repairs, while women were given most of the cashier positions based on the assumption that they are more suitable for these jobs and the fact that the resume pool showed that more women have experience as cashiers than men do.

The end result of this practice was that the composition of the jobs at Home Depot followed a peculiar distribution which proved Home Depot was intentionally segmenting the jobs among gender. The work employment data of Home Depot showed that 70% of men work as floor employees, while 70% of women worked in cashier positions. This type of discrimination is a type of discrimination called statistical discrimination. Statistical discrimination findings are most commonly used to detect racial discrimination cases, but the underlying principles of the discrimination apply the same for gender bias as it does for racial bias.

Statistical discrimination occurs when an employer makes a hiring or work placement decision based on subjective beliefs about the respective probability that white and black workers are respectively qualified for (People). In the Home Depot case instead of black and white the statistical discrimination occur based on man and women segmentation. The business strategy the company utilized had a solid foundation and was the driving force behind the move. Men have culturally in our society have been the ones that do most of the household repairs, thus the company wanted to capitalize on this fact in order to enhance their customer service capabilities.

The company knew they were doing something illegal and wanted to hide the illegal activity