Over recent years, charges of gender discrimination have drastically increased. While racial bias is no longer the most common complaint among staff, it’s still a prevalent problem and one that causes issues in a number of different industries, along with age and gender discrimination. In order to keep staff safe from this problem and safeguard against discrimination in the workplace, there are several ways to handle the issue. Here are some top tips on how to correctly deal with this issue in any company and prevent them from happening.
Pay Attention to the Less Obvious Signs
Discrimination might be present in ways you can’t always see or prove but ignoring the signs of discriminatory behaviour could cause problems in the long run. Signs might look like employee conflicts, low morale and even lawsuits in more serious cases that are indications that more serious problems could arise in the future so paying attention to these signals and tackling them early on can help deal with the issue.
Don’t Submit to Favouritism
Offering certain benefits to some employees and not others is a major flaw in many companies, but it’s also one of the quickest ways for calls of discrimination to be made. If you’re going to offer incentives, they need to be made available to everyone. For example, flexible working arrangements can’t be made to just some employees in the company. HR teams can help outline what perks are made available to all staff so that no-one is left unsure about what they’re able to benefit from.
Keep Personal Beliefs Personal
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions regarding topics of race, religion, sexual orientation and other contentious issues, but they’re not entitled to discriminate on the basis of them. Perspectives on these issues should not cloud any staff member’s judgement or affect their conduct at work, as these are often the causes of discrimination against colleagues.
Make Responses Quickly
If a staff member expresses concerns about workplace discrimination, act quickly. It’s important to resolve the issue as soon as possible as allowing it to linger and progress will only add to anxiety for that individual and allow the discrimination to continue. Having an honest and in-depth chat with everyone involved, taking notes along the way to refer back to if necessary, will help managers to gain an understanding of what is going on so that they can act accordingly.
Educate Yourself
Keeping up to date with the latest rules and regulations regarding workplace discrimination using HR software will ensure that you know what’s happening in your industry and will help businesses understand what it means for them as an employer. Using these Human Resources systems can help provide that education within the workplace, keeping important information on these subjects all in one place. It can be beneficial to pay for a lawyer who specialises in this area to provide a few hours of consultation so that staff members and business owners can ask as many questions as they want to gain a thorough understanding of the issue to help prevent it happening in their business in the future.