The Cost of Non-Compliance
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Employees can be discriminated against
for many reasons. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission the main reasons are: age, disability, equal pay, national
origin, pregnancy, race, religion, retaliation, sex, and sexual
harassment. (EEOC home page) There are also many ways in which an
employee can be discriminated against. According to the EEOC an employee
can be discriminated against in any aspect of employment, including
everything from compensation, assignment, or classification of employee,
to job advertisements and even transfers, promotions, layoffs, and
recalls. (EEOC discriminatory practices) This wide span of reasons and
ways to discriminate leaves employers open to many lawsuits, especially
if their managers and leaders are not trained on the topics.
An example of a very important type of discrimination that not many are
familiar with is retaliation. The EEOC sums up retaliation by saying
that an employer may not fire, demote, harass or otherwise
"retaliate" against an individual for filing a charge of
discrimination, participating in a discrimination proceeding, or
otherwise opposing discrimination. The same laws that prohibit
discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin,
age, and disability, as well as wage differences between men and women
performing substantially equal work, also prohibit retaliation against
individuals who oppose unlawful discrimination or participate in an
employment discrimination proceeding. (EEOC retaliation)
An example of discrimination against race has occurred in recent news.
Target Corp. has agreed to pay over $500,000 to settle a lawsuit in
which four management applicants claimed that they were victims of
racial discrimination, the Associated Press reported Tuesday, December
12. The suit was settled December 11, when U.S. District Judge Rudolph
Randa signed a consent decree, the news service reported. The U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission had accused the Minneapolis-based
retail giant Target (NYSE: TGT) of violating the Civil Rights Act of
1964 when it did not hire four black applicants in Milwaukee and
Madison, then destroyed their applications in bad faith. The suit
alleged that it did not keep documents as required under the law. Under
terms of the settlement, the AP said that Target would pay a total of
$510,000 to four applicants that were denied jobs as assistant store
managers in 2000 and 2001. (Business Journal)
Examples like these show the value of employers properly educating their
staff. Training employees on all reasons and ways of discrimination
helps them understand they need to avoid costly mistakes. An
HRIS
like People-Trak
helps HR professionals effectively manage training programs with the
People-Trak Training Module. This powerful feature enables HR
professionals to complete a variety of tasks including tracking detailed
information about internal and external training programs, course
history, skills acquired, and costs accumulated. People-Trak also tracks
demographics, and has an EEO-1 form preloaded so HR professionals can
make sure they are up to date with the survey requests of the EEOC.
People-Trak makes HR professionals more effective by empowering them to
fill out the EEOC forms, and view important training information at the
click of the mouse.
(n.d.). Retrieved from EEOC home page:
http://www.eeoc.gov/index.html
(n.d.). Retrieved from EEOC discriminatory practices:
http://www.eeoc.gov/abouteeo/overview_practices.html
(n.d.). Retrieved from EEOC retaliation:
http://www.eeoc.gov/types/retaliation.html
(n.d.). Retrieved from Business Journal:
http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2007/12/10/daily13.html
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