Discrimination at workplace is still rampant across the world, at present. Hence this research takes a critical look at the rampant practice of workplace discrimination on the basis of racism, gender, etc. When it comes to racism, it means racism takes advantages over the kind of other racism. T define discrimination precisely, that for example, certain white racists are against dark people; it is also related with respect to gender, age, discrimination against people whose sexual orientation is different than those of general people, for example, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) group, casts and countries, etc. When it comes to job recruitment, the factor of discrimination play a major role where a person has to be selected or denied of job. In case a person is meets all eligibility criteria, he or she has to be inducted, irrespective of color, gender, nationality, cast, sexual orientation, etc. To protect individuals from workplace discrimination, laws have been enacted to protect the rights of an individual and they protect an individual from discrimination from the perception of color, cast, gender, etc. And organizations that promote diversity at workplace more likely to be successful than those that do not promote the concept of workplace diversity. However, discrimination is still rampant all over the world, not mention the case of to LGBT. There are theories and laws state that the discrimination based on cast, color, gender and sexual orientation is fundamentally wrong and person does not has the rights to judge others on the basis of their creed, casts or gender.
This research examines various literatures with respect to discrimination, as well as this research takes on the theories and laws which illustrate as to how discrimination of people has the negative impact on workplace and society on the whole. The paper also discusses counseling with respected to people affected by discrimination practice both at the levels of companies and society.
Discrimination is evidently rampant at workplace; this is not generally confined to the black people, but also to Pakistan, Chinese, Indians, and Asian on the whole. Most of these categories reported some form of discrimination at workplace, be it getting to job or post job related discrimination. For example, those candidate of Muslims or Chinese whose credibility are overlooked than those of while people and are subject to unethical treatments such a of denial of promotion or good payment, ridicule in the workplace environment (Mooney, 2007). In order to cite workplace related discrimination, some sort of job related advertisements carry blatant discrimination of cast or gender, for example a particular company from Singapore gave advertisement, which goes :” preferred non Indians” (Datta-Ray, 2007). This is indicates a cleat discrimination of racism against Indians who are being singled out in that country for no specific reason. And there are companies which are not so blatant as that of the Singapore company yet advertise job related ads, which clearly carry the sense of discrimination on the basis of racism.
According to Mooney, (2007), discrimination against of gender bias is rampant across the world. There are more women economically inferior to men and when it comes job market, women are denied better job prospects when they compete with men rivals. Hence women are rejected of respectful jobs and remain economically inferior to that of men folks. Though some says the fact of racism is in low level, yet with a closer observation of hiring practice at organizations indicates that the discrimination is still rampant that young white candidates are deemed more eligible than young black males of minority communities, to be hired by any company (Edwards, 2007).
Even though laws and theories do discourage the concept of discrimination and encourage workplace equality , hiring practices of companies still remain evident for discrimination based on racism, gender bias, color, and so on. And the discrimination practice is still rampant everywhere. This practice of discrimination of cast, creed, color and gender is morally and ethically considered wrong that is what the laws and theories ensure to us (Edwards, 2007).
The first dicrimination law with respect to workplace discrimination was that of The Equal Pay Act in 1963. The law enforces the concept equality when it comes to payment for women as well as for minority on equal par with male employees (Rospenda, Richman &Shannon, 2008). Following this, many acts such as The Civil Rights Act and Age Discrimination in Employment Act which are still in effect and similar acts and laws across other nations were also introduced to protect people from the chances of victimized, discrimination racism, etc. The anti discrimination laws state that unless the discrimination cases are taken to courts, these discrimination laws cannot effective (Nielsen, Nelson, & Lancaster 2010).
If an organization supports the concept of diversity at workplace for hiring practice that do encourage the practice of diversity in selection of candidates who are from different catst, racism, creed, and such as an organization will be more successful globally. For an organization a business case for diversity is that the selection criteria should be based on the capabilities and achievements of a candidate instead of his or her gender, color, creed or cast. Such theories state that an organization where diversity is promoted, the employees will be relatively more happy and are encouraged to achieve more creativity and hence productivity than that which does not promote the culture of diversity in the workplace (Ferris& Treadway, 2008).
Chung (2001) defined work discrimination as, "unfair and negative treatment of workers or job applicants based on personal attributes that are irrelevant to job performance" (Chung, 2001,p. 34) and advocated a conceptual framework which explains vocational discrimination in the forms of three dimensions. They are 1. Formal v. formal: formal refers to decisions and policies of organizations that impacts the status of employment, compensation, job assignment and informal refers to workplace environment and behaviors which are not friendly. 2. Perceived discrimination refers to discriminatory acts but on the contrary actual discrimination is based in reality or actuality. 3. While potential discrimination talks of the discrimination that occurs if the identity of an LGBT individual is revealed, 4. Encountered discrimination talks of acts that are discriminatory in nature undergoes by an individual.
With respect to sexual orientation at workplace, there are three research streams are distinguished. The first one deal with the minority status and discrimination undergone by LGBT individuals at workplace and second research stream is about LGBT individuals coming out at work. This is where the extent of revealing the sexual orientation at workplace. And the third stream deals with the most specific job related problems of LGBT as compared to the heterosexuality (Van Hoye & Lievens 2003). Of the first stream, it is about common or uniform experience of workplace discrimination (Croteau 1996). Here comes the role of heterosexuality which is defined as the ideological system which denigrates, denies and stigmatizes non heterosexuality of individual identity, behaviors, community or relationship etc (Herek, 1990). Several research have reported that the state being heterosexual ends up productivity slowdown, job discontent, less organizational commitment, lower organization oriented self esteem and lower career dedication, as well it further leads to perceived health related issues among LGBT individuals (Van Hoye and Lievens 2003).
Second stream is concerned about five various levels of coming out which include acting which is followed by passing followed by covering which is further followed by explicitly out and implicitly out(Chung, 2001) There is also existence of alternative classification around the second stream. The consequence of keeping concealed of sexuality identity of LGBT at workplace leads to discouraging work attitudes, lower work contentment , low support from peers and low morale communication which further ends up in from the perceptive of the level of organization, higher absenteeism, and relatively low productivity (Van Hoye and Lievens 2003).
And that third stream, which is to date, is perceived as least researched on the topic of sexual orientation evaluated by human resource professionals. And the aspect of one particular consequence with respect to hiring decision based on sexual orientation and which is found to very difficult to study this problem in the field setting using actual candidates. Even though such studies bring out insightful results, however, no extensive research has been carried out to drive comprehensive conclusions.
According to the report titled “Bias in the Workplace” of Badgett, Lau, Sears, and Ho, there is a widespread discrimination of LGBT people at workplace. The study was carried out based on surveys and peer perception and self-report. And according to these, comparing with heterosexual workers, LGBT that constitutes between 16 percent to 68 percentage that is reported of workplace discrimination. Profession such as legal, about 12 to 13 percent of the survey participants revealed anti-LGBT discrimination at workplace. And when it comes to LGBT employment discrimination complaints lodged at government agencies, where the discrimination is legally prohibited, that revealed that the rate of complaints is as similar as that of racial minorities and women. Similarly, the wage differentiation is reported about of 10 to 32 percent LGBT group draw in comparison to heterosexual group, who have similar qualification as that of LGBT. And for transgender unemployment rate is reported at 6 to 60 percent which further leads to unbelievingly relatively smaller earnings. The researchers also conducted controlled experiment where a comparative analysis is carried out of LGBT and heterosexual groups, hypothetically and the participants are categorized as straight of gay and the result reported that there was significant workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force published the preliminary findings in 2009 of national transgender survey. The report says over 97 percent of the participants revealed they faced workplace harassment, mistreatment or discrimination, including privacy intrusion; 48 percent reported misusing of their personal information by their coworkers or supervisors; 41 percent of the participants said they were asked about transgender or were bused verbally or physically; some faced unemployment problem severely; while other participants reported of adverse experience such as fired from job; no hiring or denial of promotion owing to gender identities. The report also revealed similar findings of injustice and discrimination. About 57 percent of the survey participants said they tried their best to keep secret of gender transition, while 71 percentage tried delaying transition; and over 16 percent admitted resorting to underground economy for earning incomes through prostitution, drugs selling etc. The unemployed survey participants said experiencing distressful outcomes such as homelessness, deteriorating health conditions, high chances of getting HIV infected, dangerous self medicate etc, is graver than that of employed LGBT individuals (Ramos, Badgett, & Sears 2011).
According to Frye (2001) transgender are more discriminated than LGBT counterparts at workplace and because of this, in order to retain their survival professionally and to avoid the cruelty of discrimination, most of LGBT individuals prefer not to come out at working place, and because of the transgender, they show off behavioral and physical attributes that reveal that they are transgender and because of this are branded as sexual minority status, which they are against. And more often transgender are the victims of hate crimes due to the visibility issue (Frye, 2001).
Exercising of an individual control is determined by an context that is based on levels of support to the career goal of an individual who is discriminated on the basis of cast, color, gender, nationality, ans son on. And when it comes to discrimination of people, there are factors such as socio-economic status, heterosexism, and work discrimination and racism exert a great restriction to professional opportunities, development and career path" There are similar factors such as facing exclusion from certain jobs, for example, school teacher (elementary), baby sitters, etc , as well as verbal and physical harassment, property destruction, abuse, and carrer barriers and restriction, unfair work schedule, trans phobic jokes. Similarly, when it comes to the case of transgender, their career goals and objectives at hazard because of their personal safety at is at danger at workplace (Neary, 2010). Hence, requires a lot of energy to make these discriminated people face and manage discrimination both outside and within the workplace. They face issues of postponing of career development, misdirected, hindered (Edwards, 2007) bon the basis of color, racism, cast, nationality, etc.
There are 3 major issues are identified with respect to job search processing: primary part of career development: This is where transgender face challenges of 1. work history loss, 2. job interview process navigation, where the candidate faces problems such as self esteem and confidence issues and 3. Work experience briefing to employers. Hence assisting LGBT people to cope with these identified potential problems is crucial to helping them lead to career path (Neary, 2010).
LGBT and work discrimination has a high negative impact such as mental instability with psychological disorders including enhanced levels of anxiety, and stress, low level of selfconfidence and depression, tendency of using alcohol and drugs and of course suicide tendency (Grant et. al., 2011).
In order to protect individuals from workplace discrimination, laws have been enacted to protect the rights of an individual and they protect an individual from discrimination from the perception of color, cast, gender, etc. And organizations that promote diversity at workplace more likely to be successful than those that do not promote the concept of workplace diversity. However, discrimination is still rampant all over the world, not mention the case of to LGBT. There are theories and laws state that the discrimination based on cast, color, gender and sexual orientation is fundamentally wrong and person does not has the rights to judge others on the basis of their creed, casts or gender. Discrimination against of gender bias is rampant across the world. There are more women economically inferior to men and when it comes to job market, women are denied better job prospects when they compete with men rivals. Hence women are rejected of respectful jobs and remain economically inferior to that of men. Though some says the fact of racism is in low level, yet with a closer observation of hiring practice at organizations indicates that the discrimination is still rampant that young white candidates are deemed more eligible than young black males of minority communities, to be hired by any company. In order to overcome these problems, there is a lot of energy required to make these discriminated people face and manage discrimination both outside and within the workplace. They face issues of postponing of career development, misdirected, hindered (Edwards, 2007) bon the basis of color, racism, cast, nationality, etc. When it comes to transgender, they are more discriminated than LGBT counterparts at workplace and because of this, in order to retain their survival professionally and to avoid the cruelty of discrimination, most of LGBT individuals prefer not to come out at working place, and because of the transgender, they show off behavioral and physical attributes that reveal that they are transgender and because of this are branded as sexual minority status, which they are against. And more often transgender are the victims of hate crimes due to the visibility issue And with respect to the transgender unemployment rate comes around at 6 to 60 percent which further ends up surprisingly relatively smaller earnings. With respect to controlled experiment research, it carries out a comparative analysis is carried out of LGBT and heterosexual groups, hypothetically and the participants are categorized as straight of gay and the result reported that there was significant workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. transgender are more discriminated than LGBT counterparts at workplace and because of this, in order to retain their survival professionally and to avoid the cruelty of discrimination, most of LGBT individuals prefer not to come out at working place, and because of the transgender, they show off behavioral and physical attributes that reveal that they are transgender and because of this are branded as sexual minority status, which they are against. And more often transgender are the victims of hate crimes due to the visibility issue.