Wednesday, 2 October 2013

Sorting Out What Anti-Discrimination Laws Are And What They Mean

By Gregory Covey


There are many benefits in abiding by the anti-discrimination laws such as helping to increase productivity and attendance. Merely by treating people equally with respect and dignity it can help tremendously in promoting a successful business. We should judge our employees by their individual performance and not by what church they go to, where they came from, if their skin is a different color than ours, if they are older, or if they have a disability.

We will take a look at age discrimination first and look at ways to help prevent it from being a part of our workplace environment. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act, known also as ADEA, protects anyone forty or more years old. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act was designed to discourage employers from unfairly treating older employees in the following employment conditions; training opportunities, work assignments, layoffs/terminations, offered benefits, amount of pay, or whether or not they are hired.

When we take a look at racial discrimination it can become a little more complicated when we try to define it specifically. As an example, it is possible to discriminate against someone that is of one race but married to someone of a different race. It is also possible to discriminate against someone for having an affiliation to an organization that generally caters to a certain race. Finally it is possible to have discriminatory practices by establishing unnecessary work rules that would have a negative impact on certain races of people.

The color of someone's skin is also protected by anti-discrimination laws. Even if someone is of the same color skin as someone else, it can still be considered discrimination. Unfortunately, the law doesn't clearly spell out what color discrimination is only that it is based on the darkness or lightness of an individual's skin.

The same rules apply to religion. Whether a person is actually of a certain religion or not they can still be discriminated against if the person discriminating against them believes they are of that religion. They may have been seen going into or coming out of a certain religious organization and because of that someone began taking negative action against them. It can be that simple.

An individual that is unfairly treated because of the country or area they are from, their ethnicity, or if they have an accent, is referred to as national origin discrimination. Identical to the other forms of discrimination, whether they are actually from that country or area isn't important. It matters only that someone believes they are from that country.

Protecting your business from the various anti-discrimination laws is difficult, but can be accomplished by conducting a variety of on-going training classes that start from day one an employee is hired. These training classes should have new hire training and then annually thereafter, along with an employee policy manual. Each training class should consist of a detailed lesson plan and perhaps a short exam showing they understood the subject matter. Do not try to complicate your employee policy manual. The key to your policy manual is to make sure your discrimination policy is covered, plus the consequences in the event someone does not adhere to it. More important than anything else is that you should be documenting any and all training that takes place, and that you have your employees sign for their copy of your employee policy manual.




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