Solutions to Diversity Incidents from Powell
Radhakrishnan’s notes in italics
2. That Fat Slob. There is discrimination on the basis of weight, or a customer
complaint that is based on weight. The Americans With Disabilities Act does
not specifically ban such discrimination. This incident poses a basic customer
vs. employee dilemma: Do you support your competent employee or your
prejudiced client? Losing a customer could mean losing significant business
and cutting jobs. However, losing an employee can also mean the company
incurs losses (for hiring and training the new employee, and for potential
litigation costs incurred from defending the decision to fire)
The employee can sue the employer leading to loss of $$ for the company. The
employee has to prove that being of a certain weight is not a bonafide
occupational qualification (BFOQ, i.e., that weight has nothing to do with
doing the job well). In previous years, gender was used to exclude women
from certain manual jobs requiring physical strength but such actions were
deemed illegal by the US Courts (see similar cases in Canada). Employers
can use measures of physical strength to select employees, but they cannot use
gender. Further, employers cannot use customer preferences as a bonafide
occupational qualification. To qualify as a BFOQ the organization must
establish an objective relationship between the selection criterion (e.g.,
weight) and job performance
Brief et al demonstrate the role that employee prejudice can play in magnifying the
impact of ‘business justifications’ on discriminatory treatment. That study directly
applies to this situation in that if the company allows for business justifications to be
applied, then individual employees’ prejudices toward overweight individuals will be
more likely to be manifested. Therefore the company should take strong actions in not
tolerating such justifications to prevail.
In real life, a student complained about the instructor for a management
course taught in an evening MBA program first to the department head, then
to the dean of the business school, then to the provost, all of whom told him to
get lost. However, the student was not providing a significant portion of MBA
program revenues.
4. The Convicted Felon. There is discrimination on the basis of a criminal record,
which is perfectly legal; convicted felons are not a protected class.
Actually arrest records cannot be used as a basis of discrimination in some
provinces (or states). They can be, in Ontario. Pardoned convictions are a
protected class
Some convictions are job-relevant (e.g., a bank robbery conviction for an
applicant for a bank teller job); however, this does not seem to be the case
here. Although the decision not to hire the felon could be seen as poor
management, the felony could be good reason to question the applicant’s
character. The argument that the product is sold to children is irrelevant
because an accountant typically would not (a) have customer contact or (b) be
likely to influence customers’ perceptions of the company or its products.
Claim (b) has to be established empirically if the company claims that
customers of the company would be less likely to patronize the company if the
company hired such an accountant.
6. The Medical Condition. There is no discrimination or prejudice on the basis of
medical condition, and the situation has been managed well. Bill has been
given time to recover from his surgery since he returned to work, but his
performance remains below standard; this is a legitimate management
concern.
The situation can be managed better. Rather than firing Bill outright, Pete could have
gone to mediation/arbitration to encourage Bill to take disability leave. Alternatively
hiring the spouse to job share could have been proposed as a solution
8. Why Me? There is no discrimination on the basis of race. Asking a senior
employee to mentor a junior employee is a legitimate request, even if the
senior employee has less time to get her or his own work done. This however,
should be incorporated in the job description for future hires so that employee
expectations are set well in advance
Assigning mentors to new employees based on race would represent poor
management. See articles by Brief et al and Caver &Livers for accounts of
how such assignments are quite prevalent in N. American workplaces
’Esther does not know, however, whether she has been selected to mentor the new
Black nurse because she herself is Black or for some other reason, so she may
be oversensitive.
However, Human Rights Commission doc suggests that racialized group
members, by virtue of their history with such events are more sensitive in
noticing such events (some empirical research supports this). That they do
complain is itself a act of courage (more empirical research supports the
claim for the psychological stress of attributing events to race) and therefore
such comments should not be dismissed as oversensitive
A better management process would be to explain the basis for mentoring
assignments and offer incentives for people to be mentors.
11. The Top Five Club. There is no discrimination on the basis of sex or race and
this event can possibly be classified as one regarding an oversensitive
employee.
However, there is also poor management. Ideally, the plan for determining who
would appear in such an ad would be made known to all brokers in advance to
minimize the likelihood of such objections. The firm should also think about
what impression it wants to give with its advertising: Does it want to appeal
only to White males or to a more diverse group of potential customers? The
real ad appeared in the Hartford Courant, along with a later story about the
broker’s complaint.
15. The Gay Bar. There is discrimination on the basis of applicants’ perceived
attitudes toward customers, which is perfectly legitimate, and not on the basis
of sex as Rusty claimed. If there had been discrimination on the basis of
sexual orientation, it would not have been illegal according to U.S. federal
law. Dale could have hired Rusty and then worked with him on feeling more
comfortable with customers, but he can hire Phyllis just as well and then train
her to improve her bartending skills. Ultimately, it may be easier to teach
manual skills such as mixing and pouring drinks rather than changing
personal attitudes towards customers of different sexual orientation which
would affect behavior toward such customers.
19. I Only Have Eyes for You. There is no discrimination on the basis of
unwillingness to be photographed with an exposed face for an ID badge
because the same requirement, which is legal, is imposed on all employees.
The company might have practiced poor management if it lost a good
employee, but it had no recourse if the government insisted on employees
being photographed as such. This incident was based on a Florida court ruling
that a Muslim woman could not wear a veil in a driver’s license photo. The
concerns expressed in the case—protecting the public from security threats vs.
religious freedom—were the same as those expressed here.