What is Workplace discrimination?
What is workplace discrimination? One candidate given preference over the other at the time of hiring, his skills are not tested as much as his competitor does. One female is ignored at the workplace because of her gender and a man is treated rudely by his boss just to snub him in front of female coworkers. All these can be quoted as forms of workplace discrimination and harassment.
Workplace discrimination kills talent, undermines employee confidence and impacts the level of staff loyalty. Under such an environment, some employees fail to understand the discrimination tactics and others may compromise due to economic strains.
How and why an employee is discriminated at workplace
Employees are discriminated at the workplace mainly by giving favors to other employees. Employees are also discriminated on the basis of gender (being male or being female), age, mental aptitude, income level and rank etc. Females are given fewer opportunities for being female only, male employees on the other hand are reprimanded just to please the member of the staff belonging to the opposite gender.
Ways of workplace discrimination
Following are the indicators that we can use to understand the level of discrimination at the workplace.
1. Unfair Treatment
Unfair treatment in any form is considered workplace discrimination. The unfair treatment can be due to age, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation or any social background.
2. Harassment
Harassment is unwanted behavior that makes an individual uncomfortable, humiliated and mentally distressed. Withholding information and resources to create work performance difficult is also an act of harassment and discrimination. Also, keeping workers underpaid, creating difficulties that increase the possibility of work errors and in the end bullying or showing displeasure are extreme forms of discrimination.
3. Psychological discrimination
Psychological harassment is covert and consists of exclusionary tactics, gaslighting and any acts which mean to mentally break down the victim, chip away at their self-esteem and undermine them. Behaviors such as taking credit for someone’s achievement, making impossible demands, imposing unreasonable deadlines on a particular employee, constantly requiring an employee to perform demeaning tasks that are outside of their job scope or persistently opposing everything.
4. Favoritism
Favoritism is a form of nepotism, often gender becomes a key aspect of favoritism. Employees are mostly discriminated by favoritism when the organizations lack a proper policy framework for hiring, promoting and compensating employees. Policy flaws are chinks in the organization’s armor which people on key positions exploit for their blue-eyed staff.
5. Sexual orientation
Not only females but males are also discriminated because of their gender. Sometimes females are bestowed undue favors by bosses just because of sexual tendencies. For example, if there is a clear pattern of promoting people of one specific gender identity despite there being qualified candidates of other identities, this may well be an instance of discrimination.
