Strategies For Addressing Workplace Discrimination And Bias

Scenario 1: Addressing Gender Bias at the Workplace

Danielle is the practice manager of a large dental practice in the city.  She is the only female staffer at management level.  The CEO often refers to her as the ‘office mum’ although no male manager is ever referred to as the ‘office dad’.  He also expects her to handle office birthdays and always asks her to organise coffee for their monthly managerial meetings.  Danielle is becoming really frustrated with these requests and the ‘office mum’ label.  She tells her CEO of her concerns, and he responds by telling her that she is being ‘overly sensitive’.

Do you believe that the CEO is displaying any sexist behaviour, or is Danielle being overly sensitive?  Outline your reasons for your response.Outline at least three strategies that Danielle could use to curb this behaviour while still remaining respectful to her CEO and colleagues.You are the team leader of a practice where one of the employees constantly makes ‘jokes’ about people being ‘bipolar’, ‘going postal’, or being ‘off their meds’.

You happen to know that one of the other employees — within earshot of these comments — is on medication for depression.Outline at least three strategies to stop the bad behaviour without revealing confidential information, and discuss why you would use them.

In the lunchroom at your workplace, a colleague is reading the paper.  After reading an article about increases in funding for health and housing for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, they make a comment about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people ‘expecting Government handouts’ and say that they ‘should stop living in the past’.  The person always prefaces these comments with “I’m not racist, but…”

You know that this is an opinion that this person has expressed before and that it seems to be deeply ingrained.  Nobody else seems to mind this behaviour, and you are also aware that a number of other colleagues also think this way to some degree even if they do not come out and say it very often.  Sometimes, the lunchroom discussions get quite heated, with people using derogatory terms when making comments about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

You are working in a situation where you and your colleagues are frequently dealing with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.  Indeed, there are some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people working with you.  You notice that another colleague, whom you know to be Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, becomes upset and leaves the room.

• How does this impact the way you carry out your work, both in working with your colleagues and in dealing with your customers? Have any laws been broken?
• What are some of the issues affecting this situation, and what are you able to tell the non-indigenous workers about issues affecting Indigenous Australians?How would you respond to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person who left

Researchers have opined that sex discrimination may be direct as well as indirect. Direct sex discrimination takes place when an employee is subjected to unfavorable and opportunities because of their sex. Indirect sex determination mainly takes place about what sort of workwomen and men are capable or incapable of doing (Barak 2016). On analysis of the case study, it was found that the female employee named Danielle was exposed to gender biased attitudes and the behaviors of the male employees subjected her to indirect sex determination.

This case falls in the category of diminished responsibilities. This mainly means that the males and the females are not given the same responsibilities and the opportunities based on the gender. The case study shows examples of situations and events that fall in the category (Schultz 2018). As she is a female, the duties of arranging coffees, birthday parties and similar others are given to her. Although the males are equally capable of arranging for such events, the males of the office do not do so. They categorize such actions to be feminine and hence allocate such actions to Danielle only. Moreover sexist remarks are also made to her as people are seen to call them “office mom” when “office dads” title is not provded to anyone.

This shows that the workplace environment discriminated between males and females. The CEO who was complained about the gender discrimination by Danielle was also seen to avoid the topic stating that Danielle is being over sensitive. In the real sense, the CEO should have supported the claims of the female employees and should have discussed her concerns in details. He should have taken steps to develop the organizational culture where such discrimination biasness does not take place.

This would have resulted in increase of the productivity of the organization and would have increased morale and job satisfaction of Danille. Rather he turned a deaf ear and neglected the issue. In a way, he was also a supporter of the issue and he did not protest against the issue. Such mentalities needed to be changed both in order to avoid legal obligation and to influence employee morale, job satisfaction and meeting organizational goals effectively. (Helms and Mills 2017)

            One of the strategies that Danielle can undertake is maintaining a transparency of what she feels about the recent scenario and thereby discusses the same with the male employees as well as the female employees in an open discussion session in a meeting. She should establish her point about how being called with such titles affect her dignity and affects her morale (Basford, Offermann and Behrand 2014). She should also establish the fact that she is accomplishing all her assigned duties successfully and are conducting the same work as that of the males. All these should be discussed not in the arrogant tone but in a polite yet confident manner so that a transparency can be maintained.

Strategy 1: Open Discussions with Male and Female Employees

            The second initiative that Danielle can undertake is to have a meeting with the human resource department and discuss the issues with her. Without taking particular name of the employees and exposing them to the human resource department, she should suggest the HRM to introduce a number of steps in order to make a better organizational culture for both the genders. She might suggest the department to hold training sessions for development of the organizational culture, introduce various policies that might make the male employees more careful, proactive in providing job roles to all irrespective of their gender roles (Cortina, Rabelo and Holland 2018

            The third strategy that Danielle can undertake is that she can disclose all the issues she has faced and her feelings to those male employees who are supportive of her and do not possess any negative feelings. Taking such an initiative will have two better outcomes, this would help the other male members to know about the issues that their female colleagues are facing and thereby would be helping them by supporting them in different initiatives. Moreover, the supportive male members would be actively advocating from the part of the female employees that can bring out changes in the behavior of the organization. They can also transfer the feeling of Danielle to the male members making them realize their negative approach (Malos 2015).

Scenario 2:

            The first strategy that should be taken is to call the members of the team separately into the meeting room and thereby be indicated about the observations that had been made regarding the bullying behavior of the employee towards others. Each of the incident would be discussed in details giving the employee as much of the information or the data that can be given that had been observed. Discussions would be done about how such behaviors would affect the morale of the other employees and affect the organizational culture and aesthetics. Chances should be given for development of better professional behaviors (Olsen, Bijalid and Mikkelsen 2017).

The second strategy would be to handover the handbook of the human resource department regarding the behaviours that are not accepted. The Zero tolerance policy should be well understood to him regarding the sections that are covered. He should be given the opportunity to tell his side of the incidents ad accordingly warning should be set (Gillen et al. 2017).

            The employee should be told about how his behaviors are affecting the organizational culture and proper ways would be discussed with him that he needs to follow as office decorum. It should be clearly stated that such bullying behaviors would not be tolerated . he could be also placed in probationary periods for 30 days and monitoring of the employee during this time should be done to ensure that such issues are not faced again in the organization (Johnson 2015).

Strategy 2: Discussing the Issues with the HR Department

Scenario 3:

            It is very important for every healthcare professional to develop cultural competency as they need to practice their skills and knowledge not only with their clients of indigenous origin bit from other cultures as well (Paradies 2016). Therefore, I have developed myself in ways by which I can not only practice cultural sensitivity while treating native patients but also overcame my biasness.

Therefore, such comments from fellow collages never affect my morale and principle of healthcare that I have ingrained. In turn, I try to discuss the negative outcomes of such behavior to my fellow colleagues telling them that it is entirely against the bioethical principle of justice. I advocate for the native clients and try to influence my co=workers to learn ways of developing culturally competent services skills by overcoming cultural biasness. I have never broken any rules and I follow all the guidelines of Equality act of the nation.

            Such comments from the non-native workers create situations of workplace discrimination that have negative outcomes on the morale of the native workers.  Intercultural climate of the organization gets affected. It tends to create an invisible rift between the native and non-native workers and this might affect the workflow in the organization (Ewing et al. 2017). This cultural intolerance also affects the job satisfaction of the native workers and productivity of organization would be affected.

Therefore, I believe that workshop sessions need to be arranged so that the non-native workers develop good knowledge about how the native have been exploited generations after generation by the /Europeans which have resulted them in such living conditions in the preset generation. The gap in health status need to be discussed and according importance of funding them should be discussed. This would help in changing their viewpoints and they would develop indepth knowledge about their history.           

            I would talk with the native coworker in person empathetically and compassionately. I would try to explain to him that such comments are mainly due to the lack of in-depth knowledge of the other coworkers regarding the torturous history they had. I would request him to participate in a meeting one day and discuss about the various aspects of the history of their struggle with the Europeans and hence make them understand the rationale of the health status of the natives in the present generation. This would help the non-natives to understand the natives and this would make them stop the comments that they were making to him (Ferdinand et al. 2014).

References:

Barak, M.E.M., 2016. Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage Publications.

Basford, T.E., Offermann, L.R. and Behrend, T.S., 2014. Do you see what I see? Perceptions of gender microaggressions in the workplace. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 38(3), pp.340-349.

Cortina, L.M., Rabelo, V.C. and Holland, K.J., 2018. Beyond blaming the victim: Toward a more progressive understanding of workplace mistreatment. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 11(1), pp.81-100.

Ewing, B., Sarra, G., Price, R., O'Brien, G. and Priddle, C., 2017. Access to sustainable employment and productive training: workplace participation strategies for Indigenous employees. Australian Aboriginal Studies, (2), p.27.

Ferdinand, A.S., Paradies, Y., Perry, R. and Kelaher, M., 2014. Aboriginal health promotion through addressing employment discrimination. Australian journal of primary health, 20(4), pp.384-388.

Gillen, P.A., Sinclair, M., Kernohan, W.G., Begley, C.M. and Luyben, A.G., 2017. Interventions for prevention of bullying in the workplace. The Cochrane Library.