Change Your World Week Winter 2021 (Archived)

By: Matthew Hall, Wyatt Rollin, Joseph Battinkoff

Discrimination in employment

- Employee Discrimination is defined as discrimination in either a hiring process or in your place of employment. There are endless ways employers discriminate, and just to name a few: based upon race, gender identification, wage disparities, and countless more. 

• Location of where you grew up, education background, previous occupations 
• Disregarded on basis of name origin, promotions missed
• Any action taken against your religion, age, disability, etc. 

- These are just a few examples of how employers can discriminate against someone, but Vubiz eLearning perfectly paints the picture of how these acts are carried out illegally. 

Causes of Discriminatory Acts: This list can go on and on, here are just a few primal examples. 

- Social Categorization: American practices heavily on categorizing people into in and out groups through nonconscious processes. These categories that are almost automatic, help people manage large amounts of stimuli through natural impulses, grouping them. Thing like sex and race are often the status people are placed under, the basis for differential treatment. (Reskin, 2000, p.321)

- Ingroup Preference: Categorizing people into ingroups and outgroups are not only a reduction device our brains, but distort perceptions and form bias evaluations of said groups. Generally speaking, people are more comfortable, more trust in, more positive views, feel obligations toward their "group." Clearly, a bias forming process that is almost automatic to individuals, without a sense of knowing it. (Reskin, 2000, p.321). 

- Stereotyping: These are unconscious habits of thought that link personal attributes to group membership. Easily said in a workplace, tendencies that are viewed as done by a one group, in turn can be subject to biases. Descriptive stereotypes characterize how the group members are, where as prescriptive stereotypes are generalizations of how members are supposed to be. (Reskin, 2000, p.322).

Effects of Employment Discrimination

Discriminating against employees and potential hires has many long and short term affects on a business. Among these affects are:

- Many mental issues can arise due to discrimination, those discriminated against have been known to develop anxiety, depression, and loss of self control among other things. 

- Some have been known to carry these knew stresses into their daily life which then affects their physical health as well as the overall health of those around them.

- Not only this but most people who are discriminated against in the workplace will begin to wonder why they work where they do and will most likely quit and with that bring about a bad reputation for the business as having a workplace that allows these things to happen.

Workplace discrimination comes in many different forms, this can cause many people to hide their true identity prior to securing an interview.

- Elderly applicants will hide their age so that an employer won't rule them out based on their age and instead choose them for their experience in the field.

- Minorities will neglect to mention their race on applications in fear of an employer choosing someone of a different race over them.

- Disabled applicants won't mention their disability so that employers will look to hire them based off of what they are capable of and have already proven instead of judging them as unable to work.

These are only a few examples of how many applicants are afraid to apply for jobs because of employment discrimination that they see all around them. 

What can YOU do?

Now that you know all of this, what can you do to prevent discrimination in your workplace? and what can you do if you witness this happening?

- First be sure to report any discrimination you feel is happening to your superiors in order to put a stop to it as quickly as possible.

- Respect the differences between you and the other members of your workplace. We may not all look the same but each and every one of us bleeds red. 

- You don't need to love everyone but we all deserve the same respect you give to all your coworkers, regardless of how they look.

- Remain respectful and professional in how you do things. Leave the rest for when you aren't in the workplace.

- If they aren't your close friend then it's not okay to make racially or otherwise insensitive jokes towards them.

These are only a few examples of how you can prevent discrimination in your workplace, be sure to refuse to initiate, participate in, or condone any discrimination and harassment. Together we can end discrimination as a whole and make the workplace a more warm and welcoming environment.

Credits to the following for providing information:

“BEST PRACTICES AND TIPS FOR EMPLOYEES.” U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, www.eeoc.gov/initiatives/e-race/best-practices-and-tips-employees.

“The Effects Workplace Discrimination Has on Employees.” Costello & Mains, LLC, 24 July 2019, www.costellomains.com/blog/2019/07/the-effects-workplace-discrimination-has-on-employees/#:~:text=Victims%20of%20workplace%20discrimination%20often,need%20to%20take%20prescription%20medication.

Resources:

- Pager, D., & Shepherd, H. (2008). The Sociology of Discrimination: Racial Discrimination in Employment, Housing, Credit, and Consumer Markets. Annual Review of Sociology, 34, 181-209. Retrieved April 10, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/29737787

- Reskin, B. (2000). The Proximate Causes of Employment Discrimination. Contemporary Sociology, 29(2), 319-328. doi:10.2307/2654387