Introduction
Diversity refers to the difference in nature among a variety of subjects. Human beings, for example, exhibit diversities in a number of ways. People can be different in terms of their origin, skin complexion, and race or even in natural characteristics like in heights among other features.
Difference among people can also be exhibited in terms of short term biological or psychological variations like emotions and pregnancy in women among others. This paper seeks to discuss how such diversities should be handled in workplaces. The paper will look at cases of discrimination in the workplace with specification to discrimination targeting pregnant women.
Managing Diversity at the Workplace
The duties of a manager are to oversee the operations and activities under the department to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of the operations of an organization. Every management level meets different people who have different characteristics and needs and it is upon the manager to balance between the needs of these employees and the benefits that an organization can derive from these people.
Some of the elements of diversities experienced among people may compromise their capacity to perform particular tasks and duties at their work places. Organizations, in their move to ensure efficiency would opt to do away with the disadvantaged group either temporarily or even permanently. Organizational moves are always seen as attempts to cut costs on the subject employee in terms of salary and other benefits as the employees are considered to be less effective.
A case example of discrimination in work places is the discrimination of pregnant women. The pregnant women are seen to be less productive due to the medical and physical complexity of their state. There are some kinds of duties that pregnant women cannot perform and it is known that they will at some time pull out of work at the end of their pregnancy.
Managers for this reason tend to discriminate against such women during the recruitment process or even during employment. An illustration is the story of one woman named Jamey Stern who lost an emplacement opportunity because she was pregnant. Stern applied for a job with Wal-mart where she had previously worked. Upon disclosure of her pregnancy to the recruiting assistant manager, she was directly told to come for the opportunity after delivering her baby.
Stern was however not aware of this as discrimination until a later time when she noted it from reading an article. A law suit was then filed and on the determination of the case, a court decided that there existed an intentional discrimination against Stern by wal-mart. The company was charged and Stern was awarded money as back pay and further punitive charges were later made on wal-mart.
It is noted that cases of discrimination are significantly recorded and a good number of them are filed in court. Though only a smaller percentage is recorded to be successful, organizations suffer to some extent in court proceedings in terms of legal fees and other charges whenever the courts rule against them. There are also some long term loses that an organization could be making when they discriminate against employees.
Refusing to employ a person on either ground of discrimination could cost the organization a potentially valuable asset in the form of an employee. The case of stern also reveals to some extent, the level of illiteracy that a number of people posses regarding discrimination. There is a possibility that the assistant manager either was not aware that her actions amounted to discrimination or that her actions carried a penalty on her organization.
Organizations should therefore train their manages regarding legislations over discrimination issues and also move to internally discourage any kind of discrimination at the workplace as in one way or another, it will cost the organization in terms of legal charges or opportunity cost. Diversities should therefore be managed instead of being discriminated against.