Within the Context of Human Resource Management, Define Unfair Discrimination

Within the context of Human Resource Management, Define unfair discrimination

In regard to ‘unfair’ discrimination, one must first comprehend the fact that by no means necessary does it make it okay or give someone the right to ‘fairly’ discriminate anybody, persons or group. Society is build up on ideologies and stereotypes that cause a person to become susceptible to this idea of discrimination. An act of unfair discrimination may result in an individual being susceptible to abuse, injustice, or embezzlement of their rights. This discrimination is obtained through the person’s race, colour, physical appearance, gender, marital status, language or political opinion. (Stone et al., 2008)

In the workplace, employers are often obligated to show zero bias when advising applicants for a particular job. This may cause greater difficulty to the employer because as an employer they may desire certain prerequisites but instead are subjected to have a sense of openness and not to discriminate (Corbitt 2004). It would be illegal to carry out this type of unorthodox testing that intends on facilitating unfair discrimination upon applicants.

Alternatively, there are two ways that discrimination can be implemented toward others.

To indirectly discriminate someone is to apply a provision or practice which disadvantages them solely because of their race, colour, physical appearance, gender, etc., and which is not justified as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. Essentially it will appear inoffensive at first toward the victim, however the results will show that the group or individual is being put at an unreasonable disadvantage. Eg, a company may make promotion available upon five continuous years of service. This disadvantages females that may want to take off some time to have children.

To directly discriminate someone means that workers or job applicants will be treated less favourably on grounds of sexual orientation, religion, etc. This would be to deliberately decide not to choose someone for an interview, to dismiss them from a job or to even offer that person a lesser amount as payment. Eg, an employer dismisses a woman solely because of the fact that she identifies in the female gender.

It is possible for a person to submit a claim via an employment tribunal. For somebody to lodge this application against a company for its alleged unfair discrimination, they do not even have to be working, related to or a customer of the company.

Using the information from the above case, Identify and Define the type of discrimination Mr. Scheinberg may have experienced.

For a company to directly discriminate somebody, is an employer to apply an unfavourable treatment that results in the job applicants or workers mistreatment. The misconduct in this case describes Apples inability to perform an existing recruitment process without the inclusion of any age-restriction barriers and/or any other possible unethical barriers for that matter.

It is clear that Mr. Scheinberg has significantly experienced some type of unfair discrimination in his bid to return to the Apple computing industry. His previous experience at the company would give him a distinct advantage compared to other inexperienced applicants. However, Apple intends on keeping a young staff image to better lure customers into store with their sharp knowledgeable minds and energetic, vibrant character. This instance of unfair discrimination acted upon Mr. Scheinberg would be an obvious act of age-discrimination.

“It has been suggested that it is a cultural norm to favour social identity hypothesis, individuals tend to seek in-group-out-group differentiation to maintain a positive social identity as a member of that in-group.” (Finkelstein, Michael and Nambury) This excerpt describes the psychology upon discriminating against others. It emits that there is possible reasoning for the person who is conducting the recruitment to implement their own social standardising in an effort to maintain the positive social identity that the group already portrays. In relation to the case this act made by the Apple store would be a bid to ensure to their image maintains their enthusiastic and youthful team. However, this does not condone their actions toward Mr. Scheinberg, being the selection made by the recruitment team could have been pre-empted and should be reassessed in their bid to revaluate themselves in a fairly and adversely manner.

On the basis of your answer to the second point, explain two negative impacts of such form of discrimination on organisations, and two recommendations on how Human Resource managers can avoid this form of discrimination.

Obviously in this instance of recruitment, one would assume that the organisation is looking to expand and with expansion, means a growth in sales and customers.

Customers are often the number one focus when it comes to an organisations selling point; delivering and exemplifying themselves as a top ambassador in treating people fairly and appealingly. This being said when it comes to how to the public perceive an organisation, a major influence in the 21st century is social media influence. The media flocks to any opportunity to ‘bag out’ a company that intentionally and even unintentionally applies discriminative actions toward their employees or customers. (Reference) For instance, Australia being a quite diversified country, an organisation that supports having a diverse background of employees portrays themselves to be more appealing to the consumer.

If an organisation were to enforce any unfair discrimination toward any person/s or group, it is likely for the majority of the city to hear about it by the end of the day. This would result in a negative impact of the company’s image and possibly lead to any ripples that may affect the company’s growth.

A company’s ‘light overlook’ of the situation would not suffice this problem, a thorough re-evaluation of the recruitment process is needed. Apple is in need of a new scheme that involves accepting people of any age bracket. An option for human resource managers would be to remove any data with relevance to age of the participant and restructure the recruitment process so that it may be more based around the character and experience of the individual. This recommendation would allow the organisation to build a diversified team of age appropriate employees. A possible outcome for this may result in stronger connections consumers have with Apples workers, as they often feel that with age comes knowledge and experience (reference).