Having been employed by both large and small companies, I have found that each offers different positives and negatives. Large companies usually offer great benefits and provide clear employee conduct policies to avoid costly lawsuits. Small companies offer more collaboration and intimacy between employer and employee. However, the latter can be a problem if the leadership does not recognize their risk in violating federal laws or behaviors contributing to a hostile work environment. Leadership can also create a more ethical and open work environment by adopting a transformational leadership style.
Inappropriate Leadership Behavior Example
Once I worked for a small manufacturing firm that employed an unusually diverse mix of genders and minorities for a Midwestern company. Just before my employment, a consulting management firm’s contract had recently completed to address infighting among departments. The president of the company, who I will call Carol, had taken over leadership when her father retired. She had an undergraduate degree in human resources and lifetime exposure to running the business. Carol cared about the well-being of employees, although her management skills were questionable at times. Carol was under age forty, married with young children, attractive and athletic, and she dressed in a casual way neither hiding nor flaunting her sexuality.
Occasionally Carol would walk the floor and stop in the engineering office to chat with my male supervisor. The casual discussion, typically about home and family issues, was heard above open cubicles including the closest employees - all educated and married men. However, a few times Carol included topics invoking mental images of herself in the nude. ...
... middle of paper ...
...ior was unprofessional and unethical as well as a potential liability, I’m sure she would have changed it. I considered confronting her about it, but did not want to avoid perception as oversensitive and lacking the same humor as my male peers. Company documentation included a sexual harassment policy, but the leader failed to connect her own behavior. Also, adopting a transformational leadership style might have been effective for this company with a focus on ethical leadership and employee feedback. Finally, email etiquette and professionalism should have been trained and adopted, while policy enforcement would have ensured this. Unfortunately, this writing does not include any positive experiences working for this company. Perhaps there would have been more had I been able to share insight after learning about some of the benefits of effective leadership.
Discrimination in the workplace continues to be topics and issues of discussion, despite efforts to minimize or eliminate its ugly head. Discrimination is defined as the unfair or prejudicial treatment of people based on race, gender, disability or age (Fieser, 2015). Furthermore, some companies has used other forms in conjunction with discrimination like sexual harassment to mask unjust treatment in the workplace. Lilly Ledbetter was an employee at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Inc. for over 19 years. During this period, she consistently received low rankings in her annual performance-and-salary reviews. As a result, Lilly received significantly lower raises than her male counterparts, which led to her filing a civil lawsuit
Sex Discrimination in the American Workplace: Still a Fact of Life. (2000, July 01). Retrieved from National Women's Law Center : www.nwlc.org
In 2005, a female secretary filed a compliment regarding her exclusion from a social gathering on the basis of her gender. The case eventuated from an issue that the manager had not encouraged the secretary to attend the Christmas party which was served by a topless waitress. As a result of the secretary having no knowledge of the party occurring while working that night, she had become distressed by what she believed was happening...
an experience I had earlier this year in a diversity seminar that was held on my job. We had a
According to legal dictionary (2013), sexual harassment refers to any form of unwelcome sexual behavior or advances, appeals for sexual errands, and other form of physical or verbal conduct or behavior that portrays sex nature and tends to make the working environment offensive or hostile. Any behavior or remarks that take such forms constitute sexual harassment when: Compliance to such conduct happens either implicitly or explicitly based on employment of an individual, rejection or compliance to such conduct is used to make decisions during employment and when such conduct interferes or affects performance of a person at the workplace. Sexual harassment ta...
Sexual harassment is an important issue in every business; if left unattended it could cost companies millions in damages. In 1980 the Supreme Court ruled that sexual harassment was a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. From 1978 to 1980, sexual harassment cases brought against companies cost them $189 million. This number rose to $267 million from 1985-1987. Damages are just measured only by numbers. Sexual harassment can cause harm to a company's image, reputation, customers, as well as their revenue.
Discrimination continues to run rampant throughout organizations in both the United States and worldwide. The Supreme Court case, Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., dealt with 1.5 million current and former female Wal-Mart employees that claim that they had been a victim of gender discrimination. The ensuing pages will discuss the specific issues that the plaintiffs encountered, followed by suggestions from a human resource manager’s stand point in rectifying adverse impact within the Wal-Mart organization.
In an ideal world, every person is treated equally when it comes to getting a job, advancing in his or her career and being treated fairly in the workplace. Unfortunately, discrimination still exists in hiring, firing and promotions; and the diversity of the workforce regrettably can cause hostility in the workplace when individuals do not appreciate and respect the differences among themselves and their co-workers.
Why should Lael get involved in reporting if she has not experienced any of the allegations the other employees are making?
For millions of teenagers working in the American workforce, being sexually harassed is not an uncommon occurrence in their daily work environment. Unfortunately, teenagers in the workforce become particularly vulnerable to acts of harassment because they lack awareness about their rights as an employee and do not have enough work experience or maturity to address situations that arise in the work environment. These teenagers are usually part-time workers, overlooked for training, view their supervisors as having the ultimate authority over their job, and are more likely to be unaware of harassment policies than other workers within the workforce. Despite all of these factors, more and more organizations in industries like retail (i.e. Kmart), entertainment (i.e. movie theatres), and food services (i.e. McDonalds) to be specific, have turned to teenagers as a key source of labor. In doing so, these organizations have exposed themselves to the liability of protecting the youth that they employ and must take even greater measures to prevent these teenagers from being subjected to a hostile work environment.
Mr. Pearson said “Well, then I suggest you spend less time stirring up your female co-workers and less time in the beds of your married male co-workers and more time trying to find ways to improve your job performance.” (North Country) The comment by Mr. Pearson was a comment that offended Josey because it was made by what the manager said about Josey. Mr. Pearson should have heard what Josey had to say about her issue and then she could have said what he needed to say. But the fact that he did not hear her side, says how he is discriminating her for being a women.
America is known as the land of the free where every immigrant wants to come to make a life for themselves and their family. An ethnically diverse workplace is very common due to equal rights and minorities are now given the same chance as white people. Since this country is made up of many diverse communities, it is impossible to walk down the street without seeing someone that has a different ethnicity than yourself. In the workplace it is very common to have co-workers that are of a different ethnic background than yourself as well. I believe that it is a huge benefit to work with people from a different ethnic background. I have been able to open my eyes and relate with people that are not white. I have learned many things about people with different ethnic background, such as their morals, work ethics, and personalities. Some people are still close minded about the idea of working with a person of a different race; I believe that is ridicules considering the amount of people of different races in America today. Sooner or later you will have to work with people of different races, so why not make it sooner? ?Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, originally passed in 1964, outlines the groups employers are prohibited from discriminating against. The law includes race, gender, age, national origin and disability status among the underrepresented classifications -- but it does not include sexual orientation? (Velez, 2004).
Workplace harassment is unwelcome actions that are based on a person’s race, religion, color, and sex, and gender, country of origin, age, ethnicity or disability. The targets of the harassment are people who are usually perceived as “weaker” or “inferior” by the person who is harassing them. Companies and employers can also be guilty of workplace harassment if they utilize discriminatory practices against persons based on ethnicity, country of origin, religion, race, color, age, disability, or sex. These discriminatory practices have been illegal since the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Civil Rights Act of 1964), and have been amended to be more inclusive of other people who experience discrimination by the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (The Civil Rights Act of 1991), and most recently, President Obama’s signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (Stolberg, 2009).
Harassment and discrimination claims are due to lack of education about the subject. As an independent human resources consultant, Santiago-Santos will organize a local education campaign and provide employers with different trainings to educate them and their employees about harassment and discrimination. Employers will have a better understanding on how to develop internal policies and procedures to address these claims. Also, trainings will be provided for employees and they will be educated on how to prevent and identify harassment and discrimination as well as what steps to take in order to report such behavior.
Sexual harassment in the workplace is a huge problem in recent history. It can happen to anyone and it can happen everywhere. It can affect all types of races, gender and age. Statistics today shows that more and more sexual harassment has become an issue due to the large number of cases presented. Mainstream media becomes consume covering sexual harassment because of the high profile cases. Sexual harassment becomes a topic on various TV shows, and on some major morning radio talk shows mostly everyday. Sexual harassment laws must be strengthened in order to fix what has become a serious problem today in the workplace.