Addressing discrimination at your company
On behalf of Kadish & Associates Law Group posted in Business Litigation on Friday, July 19, 2019.
Discrimination is one action that can quickly ruin a business. When you are the one who is in charge, you need to ensure that none of your employees are having to deal with this type of behavior. There are several forms of discrimination that can occur in the workplace, so knowing a bit about this atrocious behavior might benefit you.
Anyone who comes into contact with workers, even virtually, can discriminate. This includes customers, vendors, co-workers and supervisors. As the employer, it is your duty to ensure that none of these individuals are allowed to treat workers differently due to any protected status.
A protected status is one that is covered in the law. These include pregnancy, age if the person is over 40, genetic information, disability, national origin, religion, race or color, sex, and gender. Sexual preference is also addressed in certain laws.
Putting an end to discrimination requires that your company has a specific policy against it. This should be clearly conveyed to everyone. There must be consequences for doing things that are classified as discrimination.
Your company’s supervisors and human resources personnel need to know exactly how to handle complaints about discrimination. These complaints must all be clearly documented. They must be investigated, which brings in another facet to discrimination.
It might be necessary to separate the person filing the complaint from the person who allegedly did the discriminating. You have to do this carefully since you can’t make it seem like you are punishing either side. Unfortunately, these cases can sometimes result in legal action. In those cases, you need to learn how to handle the formal complaint against your company.