Discrimination: A Drag on Business Success - Essay Sample

Over recent years the business community has experienced problems related to discrimination. These challenges have resulted in the slowing down of different business entities, which often lead to business failure. Discrimination is defined as the act of making divisions between people, class, or groups that are alleged to belong. (Kasper 14). Discrimination is an epidemic that has been present in the past years, but it has emerged to be a significant problem in the current society (Mellor 25). Discrimination can is categorized into different forms of society. The various ways in which discrimination is practiced include gender, race, national origin, skin color, age, mental or physical disability and parenthood or pregnancy. In a business setting, discrimination could take place in different situations, which include: signifying chosen candidates in a job advertisement, denying some employees some compensation, discrimination when giving some leaves such as maternity and disability and discriminations when offering promotions. This argumentative proposal essay aims to discuss discrimination as a problem affecting business and how to solve it, such as focusing on diversity, being a role model to other employees, educating the employers, and enhancing team building in business.

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One of the workplace-based discrimination in the current society is age. When companies advertise for job vacancies, most of them specify the age preference; they need their employees to have acquired. For instance, in February of this year, before the COVID-19 pandemic, some US hotels were closed down, and many people lost their jobs due to discrimination. Equal employment opportunity commission (EEOC) filed a case against Yale-New Haven Hospital for being alleged to participate in age discrimination in their employment. For example, when 145 physicians underwent an evaluation in this hospital, around ten percent of them were identified to have been discriminated against.

One of the ways of reducing age discrimination is by focusing on diversity. Diversity in any workplace can be seen as how a company employs people with different characteristics such as gender, age and religion. This could only be possible by making the recruiting process more appealing and inclusive to people of diverse characteristics. To ensure that a business possesses diversity, this should start from the interviewing panel. The people present in the committee should be diverse to uncover unconscious biases, resulting in fairness and equity in the recruitment process (Hong 40). When the business entity requires a few workers, the business owner could reward current employees for recommending diverse candidates. The employees could help in bringing the underrepresented people in the business hence receive some bonuses and rewards for any diverse candidate presented. Building a diverse workplace has several tangible benefits that impact the company, thus boosting its reputation (Quirk 1993). Among the benefits of practicing diversity in any business include: increased business profits, high employee engagement, better decision-making, and more innovations from different business members.

Excellent communication from the employer to employees helps in reducing discrimination in business. The business owner should inspire open communication to make sure that employees are comfortable when discussing matters affecting them in the industry to their supervisors. For instance, if a particular employee in business feels discriminated against, it could be essential and safe to bring up the issue affecting them; hence the problem can be solved by the employer or the manager. When it comes to how customers relate to employees, communication plays a vital role in enhancing the business's success. Starbucks, which is one of the worldwide companies without a brand name, is widely known for the ethics it shows to the customers it serves. In the year 2018, some coffee connoisseurs in the United States provoked a scandal towards two men racially treated in their cafes. Starbucks came up by closing over 8,000 stores to conduct a racial investigation concerning the two men (Vorderer 1). This was a sign to the community that Starbucks still value commitment to its customers.

Another way of reducing discrimination in business is to be an excellent example for your employees. How an employer behaves towards the employees sets a standard for the team members. The employees will respect the employer and the business if they feel that they receive proper treatment. Since no one is perfect, the employer should always have humility and willingness to admit mistakes. A good leader should allow the employees to observe and comment whenever the employer makes some mistakes in business. When accepting some errors that may have happened, the leader demonstrates some form of a role model in the business. When every member of a specific business is ready to be corrected, it will not be involved in any kind of discrimination activities.

Team building encompasses a range of activities that are designed to improve the performance of a team. The negative and positive effects of team building in business reduce discrimination concerning the climate and culture of an organization. The manager of any business should hold several team building sessions to help the team members to know each other. The manager can use the meeting to introduce every member involved in the business. If the members come from different ethnic groups and are of different gender, they will embrace working together as a team. This helps in enhancing a positive work environment hence no room for discrimination. One individual is not capable of achieving what an organization can be able to do as a whole. To have a competent team in the business, there should be planning, communication, and ethical decision making. When a particular group of people is assigned a specific task to perform in business, they will perform the task efficiently with no discrimination to meet their employer's requirements. With no discrimination in the business, customers will refer their friends and relatives to the business hence improving the sector.

To reduce discrimination in a business community, the employees present in a business should be educated. The members of the business should be aware of what discrimination constitutes. People participating in the business should be taught to enhance the reduction in discrimination activities in any workplace. Therefore, there should be some seminars or workshops to help sensitize the act of discrimination. The topics that should be handled in these seminars should be related to discrimination and how it is identified in different institutions and society. The workshops should be necessary to be involved by every member, although one may resist the topic being discussed, it may hurt discrimination. The business leaders create an opportunity to enhance a positive mindset to the members, hence implementing the right strategies to curb discrimination. The company should, therefore, participate in advising its members of the importance of attending such meetings. When new members are recruited into the business, they should also be first shown the effects of discrimination in any business.

Furthermore, discrimination topics should be incorporated into leadership seminars to give specific recommendations. The leaders should regularly integrate the theme of discrimination in their team meetings to portray unity with the organization and remind the organization members of the work's goal where discrimination is not tolerated. The aspect of education in the form of training and seminars is the most important. These educational events help change one's behavior and attitude and positive framing and interpersonal interaction. The need to educate employees and the leaders of different companies on discrimination helps in ensuring a healthy and also contented working place. The seminars, workshops, and development programs play a tremendous role in decreasing discrimination in the workplace.

In any workplace, discrimination can be reduced by offering psychological support to the people in the workplace (Trueland 14). When someone is discriminated, the individual could have an enormous health impact, which could abruptly increase the stress level. This discrimination could result in serious illnesses such as depression and burnouts. Social support in any workplace or any private life is necessary for maintaining good mental and physical health. Therefore, psychological support helps organization members feel like part of the organization; hence, they will be motivated to continue working in the business.

Another way of reducing discrimination in a business is the active positioning of the organization and the industrious choice of employees. Different companies, institutions, and businesses should enhance anti-harassment regulations and policies on the ways of supporting the discrimination victims. This goes hand in hand with the company's need to display itself in a clear and active position. This could include enacting no discrimination policies, providing ethical guidelines, and how every member of the organization should conduct him/herself in the organization. Powerful reporting of discriminatory activities in the workplace to the relevant authority can also be used to reduce discrimination in the business. When it comes to the workers selected in any workplace, it is taken as an essential step since it facilitates in boosting more local and healthy working environments. In any working place, the decisions made by every person should involve the six-eye principle; for example, the human resource manager attempt to get an agreement to end discriminatory influences on some decisions.

In conclusion, avoiding discrimination in any organization, business, or institution is not only crucial in solving the economic problem but also helps in reducing the psychological health of individuals. From the above argument proposal essay, it can be concluded that enacting policies, focusing on diversity, proper communication, team building, educating the employees, enhancing psychological support and active positioning of the organization are essential steps that can be put to eliminate or decrease discrimination in business or an organization. Besides the mentioned steps of eliminating discrimination, the other ways that can be practiced to reduce bias in business include: Respecting racial and cultural differences between employees and avoidance of race and gender-based issues.

Works cited

Hong, Kihye. The Impact of Discrimination Damage Perceived by adolescents on Discrimination Experience: Focusing on the moderating Effect of Discrimination and Sensitivity. Korean Association of Victimology (Vol. 27(1), pp. 33–65). 30 April. 2019

Kasper, Lippert-Rasmussen. (PDF) What Is Discrimination? (pp. 13-53). ResearchGate. 3 Dec. 2013

Mellor, Juliet. Racial discrimination in the workplace. (pp.25–25). BDJ in Practice. 8 July. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41404-019-0103-7

Quirk, Kathleen. Ethnography and Outreach: The Benefits of Team Work. (vol. 15, pp. 41–43) SfAA Sept. 1993. 10.17730/praa.15.4.4732559h452785x8.

Trueland, Jenifer. Blame culture: How to make a change in your workplace. (pp. 14–17). Nursing Standard. 2019. https://doi.org/10.7748/ns.34.9.14.s9

Vorderer, Peter. Communication and the Good Life: Why and How Our Discipline Should Make a Difference. (pp. 1–12) Oxford University Press. 12 Dec. 2015