One of the most important operations in any business is employing individuals to fill in vacancies in the company. However, managers should realize that the main purpose of hiring new individuals is not simply to fill in vacancies but rather hiring should be aimed at finding the right person for the job.
The failure would lead to either a vicious cycle of hiring or having to contend with an employee who would a liable and not an asset to the company. Many companies in their bid to perform this important task tend to be selective, basing their hiring of new workers on some biased misconceptions.
These misconceptions may include age, race, gender, religious background and health status among others. Hiring of new employees should be done at the discretion of the company’s management, such misconceptions may have effects which may reverberate throughout the company.
It is such employment discrimination practice that may lead to hiring of employees not based on their experience and qualification for the job, but rather because they fit the external qualifications which, by and large, are not related to work performance. With the current policies that are aimed at curbing any form of discrimination in our societies, such businesses may find themselves going tough not only with various human rights bodies, trade unions but also with the government.
One of the dangers of selective employment of individuals based on either of these misconceptions is the likelihood of the discriminated potential employees logging a lawsuit against the company. Many companies have lost millions of shillings in lawsuits logged by the would-be employees due to discrimination.
The main purpose of setting a business is profit maximization thus anything that might impede the company’s match towards this goal should be avoided at all costs. Lawsuits and eventual fines imposed on companies due to discrimination against certain would-be employees are unnecessary losses that companies should cut down in all ways possible. Moreover, discrimination has become a very sensitive issue in the world today that, not only is the company at risk of being fined by authorities, but also they risk being shunned upon.
This may lead to loss of customers and, moreover, potential employees may avoid such companies. In some cases, the company may also lose their current employees, too. Loss of customers would definitely affect the company’s turnover while inability to hire new employees; and losing the existing employees may also compound the problem.
Stringent labor market laws and the cutthroat competition that exist in the labor market would force the company’s management to choose between sticking to their employment discrimination policies and hiring qualified individuals without any misconceptions.
In conclusion, the ability to give maximum input into any task in a company has no relationship with someone’s skin color, gender or religious background. If a company has a mandate to fill any vacant position, they should do so based on universally accepted conventions for hiring individuals for that particular profession.
While it is accepted that some tasks may require the masculinity of men or the tender touch of ladies or the youthful strength; these are just few secluded cases that should not be used as the benchmark for hiring new employees. Professional code of conduct dictates that an individual should be hired, with other factors held constant, on the basis of their professional qualification or experience in that particular field and not on the basis of their skin color, religious background or any other form of discriminatory classification.