A dress code is a simple group of standards that organizations tend to provide their employees to follow in line with guidance on how to dress at work. These sets of codes are determined by several sets of factors that are determined majorly by the formality or lack thereof of the interactions between the employees and clients. Whereas some organizations have a free to dress kind of environment, majority f the companies have a set of rules that employees much always observe whenever they are at work ( Hazen & Syrdahl, 2010) . Most professional companies such as law firms, hospitals, banking sectors and other financial institutions are directed to dress in a certain way. As it stands currently, there is no particular federal law that governs the employee dress codes in the working life. However, that does not entirely mean that the HR policies regarding dress codes are up for abuse by the employees, similarly, organizations should also not subject their employees so discriminative biases such as sexual abuse, religious, gender or disability fronts.
Most dress code challenges stem from the gender bias and religious matters. The dressing issue presented by the co-workers of the lady who wears a headscarf to work is one of the challenges of HR policies against that of federal and national laws. While the lady is within her rights to dress in a manner that fits her faith, it is outrightly spelled out in the contract that such mode of dressing is prohibited in our organization. Whereas this organization is not a religious one, the feeling among the co-workers that the mode of dressing for the lady in headscarf projects proponents of the Muslim faith is a matter that raises eyebrows. The ability to implement strict dress codes is restrained by the lack of such provisions in the federal law. Forcing the lady to take off her headscarf to dress like the rest has the risk of putting the organization on a legal battlefront with the employee.
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The laws that have been implemented by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) dictate that is utterly criminal to discriminate any employee on the basis of their dress code. The law clearly prohibits an employer from having any policy in place that may impact on the applicants or the employees in a racial, gender or disability fronts. The U.S. EEOC law goes hand in hand with the State and Local Government Laws on the General coverage such as the Section 102 and 103 of the Civil Rights Acts of 1991 which speaks of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) which calls for compensation for the punitive damage for any case of religious or physical discrimination. In the above case, forcing the lady to take off her headscarf may be seen as trampling on her rights and a direct violation of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. According to the EEOC laws, The (Title VII) law makes it illegal to have any sort of discrimination of any kind to employees. The affected party is at liberty to lodge any formal complaints to the discrimination or lawsuit over the trampling of their rights to dress according to their faith.
Some of the restrictions likely to be encountered in enforcing the particular dress code o the employee include among other things the fact that dress codes are seen as direct and indirect discriminations. The indirect discrimination, as in the case of my organization is the fact that the rule implies to everyone; however, it affects some employees. The employee’s first time refusal to obey the dress code of the company would see me give her first warning, with instructions to toe the line. Her continued defiance would see me escalate her matters to the matters to an employment tribunal with the U.S. EEOC tribunal to solve the issues. With all the rights on running the business left at my discrimination, I would serve her with her termination letter in lieu of the notice.
However, the decision to force the force the employee to remove her headscarf is not entirely out of context. The EEOC under the pre-employment inquiries provides for the establishment of the dress code that applies to all employees within a particular job category ( Levi, 2007) . The provision to ensure that all employees agree to the terms of employment including dress code makes it easy, therefore, to enforce this particular employee to dress in a particular way without being seen as rather discriminative. In the dress code Act of EEOC, the code should not treat other employees as less favorable, but should be uniform for all to follow.
The dilemma of this matter emerges at the point where the Act stipulates that:
“ if the dress code conflicts with an employee's religious practices and the employee request an accommodation, the employer must modify the dress code or permit an exception to the dress code unless doing so would result in undue hardship.” (EEOC)
It is unclear if the employee will have any hardship when she removes her headscarf and works in uniformity with the rest. The employee may make several legal claims upon being forced to do without her dressing such as the claim under the Constructive Discharge. This is the practice under which the EEOC laws prohibit such acts as making the environment untenable for the employee thus forcing them to resign at zero option.
The successful refusal by the employee to remove her headscarf may have a devastating impact on the other employees. There may rise a feeling of defiance and carelessness. The lawless climate may give rise to issues of discriminative feeling among the rest of the employees who may generate a feeling that the administration shows favors towards this particular employee. It is, therefore, that the employee follows the strict rules of the work environment or ship out of the organization.
References
Hazen, L., & Syrdahl, J. (2010). Dress codes and appearance policies: What not to wear at work. The Colorado Lawyer , 39 (9), 55-63.
Levi, J. L. (2007). Misapplying equality theories: Dress codes at work. Yale JL & Feminism , 19 , 353.
U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commisiion. Prohibited Employment Policies/Practices: Pre-Employment Inquiries and Dress code. Accessed on 9 th April from; https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/index.cfm
