PROVIDING EQUAL EMPLOYEMENT OPPORTUNITIES AND A SAFE WORK PLACE

Concepts and brief description:

As seen in the Chapter 2, the labor market has been evolving and changing for the last ten to fifteen years. The new minorities and diversities lead companies and Human Resources to create measures to avoid discriminations at their work places.
Discriminations are various and diverse. The role of Human Resource Managers is to ensure equal employment opportunities. A company has to be fair and give equal rights to its employees, equal salary policies to men and women, as well as equal treatments to workers, no matter their age. A company also must give equal employment opportunities to individuals with disabilities, to Vietnam Veterans, to pregnant women, and to every other person, no regardless to their race, color, religion, sex, and national origins. To guarantee those rights and control discrimination, the US Government created Commissions and means of control.
Even though all the discriminations evocated previously can easily be detected, an employee can still recognize if he or she is a victim of discrimination at work if he goes through disparate treatments (different treatment according to race, sex, age…), or if he or she sees disparate impacts (inequality of employment opportunities depending on the race, age sex…).
However, Human Resources Managers have means and solution to fight discrimination. Companies can create and promote affirmative actions, set up appropriate accommodation for employees with disabilities; they can prevent sexual harassment and value the new diversities which compose the labor force today.

Emotional hook:

Why is fighting discrimination so important legally? How can applying the Equal Employment Opportunity become an advantage and strength for a company?

Key to elicit in discussion:

We see in this chapter that discrimination and Equal Opportunities are now regulated by laws and amendments. However, those laws, which guarantee the freedom and equality of chances, seem to limit and control the free agency that companies have to hire whoever they want.

Facilitative question:

How can a company guarantee Equal Employment Opportunities to individuals who are unique and extremely different in many points to each other?