Voluntarily Prohibited Federal Forms of Discrimination

Introduction 

Discrimination is a significant problem affecting millions of employees worldwide. It refers to the unfair treatment of workers due to their personal characteristics like color, race, or age. Discriminatory bias often occurs during the hiring, promotion, compensation, and termination of employees. The Federal anti-discrimination laws protect special groups of employees from various forms of discrimination and aid in creating a good working environment. Moreover, the implementation of these laws helps organizations to achieve their objective. In spite of the positive impact of anti-discrimination laws in the workplace, the regulations impose a high implementation burden on the business owners. The current scenario prohibits discrimination in the workplace terming it to be unconstitutional, and gives organizations the right to adopt other practices critical in prohibiting other forms of discrimination in the workplace. 

Voluntarily Prohibiting Federal Forms of Discrimination in Anti-discrimination Laws 

The voluntary prohibition of federal forms of discrimination prohibited under the federal anti-discrimination laws has various costs and benefits. Sexual harassment is one of the forms of discrimination that are clearly prohibited under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Quillian, & Hexel, 2016). The law prohibits against making unwanted sexual requests to employees in an organization. Benefits of implementing this law include creating a positive and comfortable working environment, improving employee retention rate, productivity, and commitment to the company. However, the associated costs are a loss of experienced employees reported for sexual harassment and reputational damage particularly with senior managers associated with the vice. 

The Federal anti-discrimination law also prohibits segregating employees on the basis of age under the Age Discrimination in Unemployment Act (ADEA). This law applies to workers within the age of forty years and above because they face a tough challenge securing lucrative job opportunities despite their qualifications. Advantages of voluntary implementation of ADEA are retention of talented employees, higher productivity, mentoring, accumulation of vast knowledge, and development of young employees (Quillian, & Hexel, 2016). Disadvantages of adopting the ADEA are the development of a resistant culture, poor communication among employees of different age groups, and formation of unfair expectations on different employee groups. 

Pregnancy discrimination is another form of discrimination that is coved by the Federal anti-discrimination law. The law was passed to protect pregnant women against losing their jobs because of their pregnancies or their intentions and desires to get pregnant (Player, & Sperino, 2017). The law has several benefits namely reducing women’s stress levels, better productivity, and an increasing sense of belonging. On the downside, organizations incur costs in hiring temporary workers or paying overtime to hire part-time employees when pregnant women go to leave after giving birth. 

Voluntarily Prohibiting Forms of Discrimination not in Anti-Discrimination Laws 

The prohibition of other forms of discrimination not within the protected class in the Federal anti-discrimination law will also have varying consequences. Sexual orientation discrimination has become a major challenge for the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. For example, the case of Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College, where the plaintiff argued she experienced discrimination in promotion processes because she was a lesbian It is time for organizations to adopt policies prohibiting sexual orientation in a company and the benefits would be reducing employee stress level, reducing negative publicity, and increasing productivity. The costs of introducing the new law are training employees about the issue and compensating workers that complain of going through sexual orientation discrimination. 

Workplace bullying is another problematic issue that is not included in the Federal anti-discrimination laws. Bullying refers to the continuous negative behavior subjected to employees due to the power imbalance between employees, for example, intimidation and social exclusion. Bullying may be intentional or unintentional, but the behavior leads to the same negative effects. The Federal anti-discrimination laws cover some forms of bullying in relation to age, race, and ethnicity among other factors, but leaves out the other types of negative conduct. Creating a policy on bullying will help to increase the overall level of friendliness among the employees that result in higher profits. Since most types of bullying behavior are unintentional, the implementation process is bound to raise many challenges in the organization. 

Benefits and Costs of Diversified Workforce 

The adoption of hiring and promotion techniques that promote diversity in the workforce has several benefits for the organization. Employees generate more creative solutions as they have varying viewpoints on problematic issues. Hence, the organization becomes more innovative. Workers also learn from each other and grow through the sharing of ideas and opinions (Loeb, 2104). Moreover, diversity increases the level of productivity in the organization because the employees feel valued and appreciated by the management. Thus, they develop high morale for their work. Besides, diversified organizations develop a good reputation in the market, hence they easily attract the best-talented employees in the market. 

However, diversity is linked to a number of disadvantages. There is a high risk of discrimination among the workers due to their differences, and this causes the loss of valuable people in the workplace. Communication problems tend to arise in diverse teams because the personnel usee different language or styles of communicating (Loeb, 2014). Moreover, the development of a negative attitude towards some groups of employees creates disunity in the organization. 

Ethical Considerations 

There are several ethical considerations of not voluntarily prohibiting the prohibitions included in the federal anti-discrimination laws. One is the fair treatment of employees in the organization. Without the anti-discrimination law, some groups of workers will unjustly suffer at the hands of other employees, and some might decide to look for employment elsewhere. Another is the need for employees to assume the responsibility and accountability of their actions. Workers should be punished for their mistakes, and it is vital for the management to safeguard the interests of the remaining employees in a company. Besides, respect among the workers should be observed, but this goal cannot be achieved without the anti-discrimination law dictating the employees’ actions. 

It is equally vital to take into account the ethical considerations for voluntary adopting hiring and promotion practices to form a diversified workforce. One is predicting how the employees will react to the new rules advanced by the organization. Secondly is whether the new policies will show the employees that the organization values them and cares for their needs. 

Final Recommendation 

Following the above information, it is vital for the retail to implement all the employee protection strategies and adopt the hiring and promotion tactics to increase diversity in the organization. Employees are the most critical resource in an organization and a potential source of competitive advantage for a firm. By focusing on improving the workers' welfare, the organization will be strengthening its human resource for better performance. Of course, the workers' results are influenced by the level of diversity that determines whether or not firms will benefit from the positive contribution of the workers. As a result, the organization will become a prosperous entity. 

References 

Guillaume, Y. R., Dawson, J. F., Otaye‐Ebede, L., Woods, S. A., & West, M. A. (2017). Harnessing demographic differences in organizations: What moderates the effects of workplace diversity?. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(2), 276-303. 

Loeb, A. (2014). Benefits of diversity. Nature Physics, 10(9), 616. 

Player, M., & Sperino, S. (2017). Federal law of employment discrimination in a nutshell. West Academic. 

Quillian, L., & Hexel, O. (2016). Trends and Patterns in Racial Discrimination in Hiring in America, 1974–2015. In Meetings of the Population Association of America, Washington, DC. 

Rosenthal, L. D. (2016). No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The Lack of Protection for Volunteers Under Federal Anti-Discrimination Statutes. BYU L. Rev., 117.