The case study offered by Goree in his book “Ethics in the Workplace” dealing with the refusal to hire Bandu despite his being a good specialist by Julie’s boss involves a set of discrimination issues that have to be dealt with. The company is too closed for diversity and innovation and does not accept antidiscrimination practices. This means that the company may be subject to a set of laws enacted on the territory of the US and may be sued by Bandu on the basis of this rejection.
Julie should not protest with the help of her own resignation because, in this case, she will only lose her job and will prove nothing to nobody. She has to pay more attention to these hiring practices in her company, and maybe she will be able to retain respect for her boss and her workplace at the same time in case she finds a peaceful and efficient alternative for her organization. Of course, the legally correct decision has to be consulting the authoritative bodies taking up legal fight against discrimination of all types, for example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, thus restoring justice.
“The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is the federal agency charged with enforcing antidiscrimination laws and investigating allegations of job discrimination” (Goree 176-7).
Thus, it is obvious that the commission’s chief responsibility is to detect the companies that do not keep to the established laws banning racial, gender, and other discrimination and takes legal action to improve the situation. As in the case with the firm in which Julie works, even a superficial investigation will show a lack of diversity in the company and will give much provocative information.
In order to change the situation and remain at work, Julie, as an employee of the human resources department, has to work out the hiring practice that will satisfy both the employers and employees. This practice should engage more racial and ethnic minorities taking part in the working process of the company; to make this happen, Julie should do her best to explain all benefits of racial diversity at the workplace to her boss and give out a set of examples of successful firms that implemented these practices as well as explain all possible drawbacks and threats to sustaining the same limiting policy further.
Consequently, the innovative hiring policy should involve higher competition for a certain position to ensure that all participants are placed in equal conditions and have equal opportunities. This will ensure not only a higher level of intellectual potential accumulated in a company but will also provide for diversity within the company.
The boss of the company in which Julie works is more likely to be afraid of complications that may appear in the process of managing the staff of the company. In this context, Julie may offer a complex of managerial decisions, including promotion of education on diversity, implementation of various programs encouraging cross-cultural communication, and exchange of information, knowledge, and experience.
In this case, the boss has to understand how cultural and ethnic diversity, due to the great difference of mentalities and ways of doing things, may enrich the scope of strategies used in conducting business affairs. Being innovative and unpredictable, using the whole scope of accumulated multicultural knowledge, the company will retain a high competitive advantage and will remain profit-making.
In case the boss is afraid of hiring representatives of ethnic minorities because of the further fear of potential difficulties of dismissal, then he should create a legal contract for all employees in which he will fix all possible reasons for firing an employee so that he could fire any worker of his firm without problems with the law. This measure may essentially help in sustaining a good reputation of the firm and not having any legal complications because it is known that the main problems arise as soon as the time to dismiss some employee comes.
At the time of his or her work, the only issue that may be raised in the context of racial discrimination may be the level of providing the freedom of expression, religion, or beliefs that is evident within the company. By means of arranging an open information and experience exchange that has been already discussed, these issues may be successfully eliminated. Nevertheless, in the moment of dismissal, racial issues are the first to be raised; it is hard to explain or to prove the real reasons for the person’s firing.
This is why the contract should be composed in a detailed and scrupulous way in order to fix all possible preconditions for being fired. One more moment that every boss has to remember is that the contract will be an efficient controlling tool only under the condition that all employees will be subject to these rules – if representatives of racial minorities see that they are fired for the reasons for which white people are not, this fact may become a serious pretext for a lawsuit, and probably a successful one.
Affirmative action will be achieved by means of increasing standards, so the company is likely to gain only benefits from such a practice implemented in its everyday activity. It is not absolutely necessary to hire only representatives of racial minorities or give the competitive employment advantage to them; however, it is important to make others understand that the firm demands much from its employees, no matter what color or race they are. This attitude will raise the reputation of the company and will make others strive to be employed there.
Bibliography
Goree, Kevin. Ethics in the Workplace. 2nd Edition. Thomson-South Western, 2007.