Equal Employment Law and Workforce Diversity

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Equal Employment Law and Workforce Diversity
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Strategic Issues

• Proactive vs. Reactive Responses to Legal and
  Diversity Issues
• Resistance
• Discrimination and Fairness View
• Access and Legitimacy View
• Learning Perspective

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Strategic Issues

• Breadth and Depth of Approaches
• Across all HR functions, such as selection,
  training, compensation, promotion
• Up and down all levels of organization
• Across all functions and units of organization

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Strategic Issues

• Formality of Approaches
• Episodic, freestanding, and systematic
• Ties to the strategic plan

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Other Issues to Consider

• Management Philosophy
• Organizational Culture
• Industry Dynamics
• Labor Market Availability and Power of Employees
• Union Philosophy and Actions

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Equal Employment Law

• Federal and State Law
• Court System
• Federal Statutes vs. Constitutional Rights
• Intent of Laws Solve Social Inequalities
• Not all sources of discrimination are banned by
  equal employment law

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Regulatory Model
Laws and Executive Orders
Regulatory Agencies
Social Problems
Regulatory Actions
Management Responses
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Major EEO Laws

• Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) and Civil
  Rights Law of 1991
• Pregnancy Discrimination Act
• Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967)
• American with Disabilities Act (1990)
• Family and Medical Leave Act (1993)

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What is Illegal Discrimination?
Basic Definition Using standards not related
to the job or applying different standards to
people who have protected class characteristics
in recruiting, selecting, training, evaluating,
compensating or promoting individuals
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Two Types of Discrimination

• Disparate Treatment
• People are overtly treated differently from
  others because of sex, race, age, disability,
  religion, etc.
• Example Refusal to hire Muslims for security
  guard positions

• Disparate Impact
• Employment practice that results in differential
  impact on (under-representation of) different
  classes of people
• Example Requiring a college degree

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What is Legal Discrimination?

• Discrimination based on business necessity
  (practice necessary for the safe and efficient
  operation of business)
• BFOQs characteristic justified as reasonably
  necessary to the normal operations of the
  business
• Validated job requirements research that shows
  relationships between decision making procedures
  and job requirements

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EEO Complaint Processing

• Enforcement and adjudicating agencies EEOC,
  OFCCP, DOL, DOJ, and state and local enforcement
  agencies
• Filing and managing complaints (see handout)
• Decision rules shifting burden of proof and
  Uniform Guidelines

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Affirmative Action

• Set of specific actions taken to actively seek
  out, hire, and promote underrepresented groups
• Written document with utilization analyses, goals
  and timetables, action steps
• Types Required of federal contractors
  court-ordered or consent decreed and voluntary

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Acceptable AA Programs

• Conspicuous imbalance of minority members in
  organization
• Do not trammel the rights of (completely block)
  major group members
• Do not require the discharge of majority group
  members
• Voluntary
• Quotas are temporary and will end when balance is
  achieved

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Current Issues in AA

• Civil Rights Act of 1991 has made race (sex)
  norming illegal, which has direct impact on AA
  programs
• States passing laws making AA in state government
  illegal (CA)
• Must show that increasing diversity is valid and
  desirable goal of organization
• Must not use narrow definition of diversity
  (University of Michigan Plan)

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What is meant by diversity?

• Racial
• Ethnic
• Gender
• Disability
• Religious

• Age
• Family stage
• Cross-cultural
• Sexual orientation
• Socio-economic status

all the ways we are different -- Pillsbury
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Why do we need to focus on workforce diversity?

• Demographic changes
• Changing legal definitions and laws
• Employment problems of certain groups
• Global expansion of business

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The U.S. Population (2000 Census)
Gender Males 49.1 Females 50.9
Racial Background White 69.1 Hispanic
12.5 Black 12.3 Asian 3.6 American
Indian/Alaska Native .9 Hawaiian/Pacific
Islander .1
Age Under 25 42.8 25 over 57.2
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Changing legal definitions and laws

• Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 1991
• Age Discrimination in Employment Act

• American with Disabilities Act
• Family and Medical Leave Act

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Employment Problems

• Productivity losses from family care-giving needs
  is estimated at 11 billion per year
• 75 of disabled persons who want to work are not
  working (2 ½ times more likely to be unemployed)
• 50 of the available American Indian workforce is
  unemployed

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Global expansion of business

• Transnational HR management issues
• Cross cultural value differences
• Deployment of people
• Knowledge and information dissemination
• Identifying and developing talent globally

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Differences between Affirmative Action and
Diversity Management

• Affirmative Action
• Focus on recruitment and hiring goals
• Equality and fairness are motivations
• Encourages assimilation

• Diversity Management
• Focus on bottom line results
• Increased business success is motivation
• Encourages valuing differences

Affirmative Action gets the new fuel into the
tank, while diversity management gets women,
minorities, disabled, etc.in the drivers seat
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Arguments for Diversity Management

• Cost savings in turnover, absenteeism, and
  lawsuits
• Need talent that is increasingly scarce
• Increase business growth and markets
• Reduce economic inequality in society

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Arguments Against Diversity Management

• Disagreement on the meaning of diversity
• Too many diversities to manage
• Lip service is paid to this aspect of management

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Arguments Against Diversity Management

• Communication problems among employees
• Backlash from traditional employees
• Are there valid data that diversity actually
  improves bottom line performance of companies?

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What have been typical company responses to
managing diversity?

• Different strategic perspectives (philosophies)
  and different operational approaches
• Top managers plan the strategic approach while
  lower and middle level managers must implement
  plans
• Dass Parker (1999)

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Strategic Approaches

• Resistance perspective diversity is threatening
• Discrimination and fairness perspective
  diversity as a legal problem to solve
• Access and legitimacy perspective diversity as
  business necessity
• Learning perspective diversity brings about new
  learning and innovation

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Operational Approaches

• Episodic initiatives are isolated, disjointed,
  and separate from core organizational activities
• Freestanding sporadic programs to deal with
  particular pressures
• Systemic initiatives are linked to strategic
  plans, existing systems, and integrated with core
  activities

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Developing the Business Case for Diversity
Management

• Develop specific business objectives related to
  diversity
• Identify the actions required for each objective
• Conduct cost/benefit analyses
• Develop tracking mechanisms to assess progress
  and financial impact (process and outcome
  measures)
• Robinson Dechant (1997)

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Other Factors in Achieving True Multiculturalism

• Top management philosophy and support
• Human resource programs changed
• Communication and buy in among employees
• Link with mission, strategic goals, and plans

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Other Factors in Achieving True Multiculturalism

• Show business results of diversity initiatives
  focus is on performance standards and using
  diversity of ideas and practices to achieve these
  standards
• Ongoing education programs
• Partnerships between businesses and schools to
  enhance the quality of diverse candidates (e.g.,
  Textron Financial Associates Program)

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Consider Work-Life Programs

• Clarification of what is important in terms of
  business priorities and personal needs and
  interests
• Recognition of employees as whole people who
  have lives beyond work
• Continuous experimentation of changing work
  processes that enhance performance while also
  enriching personal life

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Four strategies for meeting global challenges

• Encourage aspatial careers (spend working lives
  in multiple cultures)
• Awareness building assignments (3-12 month
  assignments)
• SWAT Teams (short term deployment of experts to
  solve problems)
• Virtual solutions and global human resource
  information systems

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Diversity Case Incidents
Social Information Processing Competencies 1.
Unconscious Incompetence Naïve or not knowing
what you dont know Blissful ignorance 2.
Conscious Incompetence Sophisticated
rationalization 3. Conscious Competence Activel
y trying to overcome biases 4. Unconscious
Competence Natural ability to deal with diversity