Did we Discriminate?

There are many reasons that employees might feel that they are discriminated against when applying for positions. If the employee is not offered the position, they may believe that this has to do with their status within a protected class. When candidates fall within a protected class based on race, sex, disability, age, national origin, or religion, the need for employers to understand and follow the “Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures,” a procedural document published in the Federal Register to help employers avoid discriminatory action, is high. However, even when an organization understands these guidelines, there is no guarantee that the guidelines will be operationalized within the selection process. This exercise asks that you create a checklist that operationalizes these guidelines to ensure ethical treatment..

Next, reflect upon the following:

• Choose the most applicable ethics theory and apply it to the issue described in the article.
• What do you see as critical to a strong solution that this theory ignores?
• How does the choice of approach (based on theory) impact the decisions made by organizational leaders related to selection? Put yourself in the role of the organizational leaders.

Address the following in your primary discussion post:

• As a marketing manager, you have recently turned down a female employee for a position as a sales manager. The position was posted both internally and externally. She believes the denial was due to her gender, and she has filed a sex discrimination charge with the EEOC.
• You did hire an external male candidate for the position.
• You know that the EEOC will be reviewing the claim.
• Taking this into consideration, create a checklist for ethical selection of candidates.
• Post this checklist and explain how, if followed, this checklist would make sure that the EEOC would not find you at fault for sex discrimination.
• Make sure you address how your list moves past the legal issues and guidelines and addresses the ethical dimensions of the issue.

One of the considerations when participating in course discussions is to keep an open mind and be appreciative of the fact that we don’t all share the same perspective. Ethical issues can many times bring emotions to the surface. Work to take a step back and use this as a learning experience about both yourself and others that you might work with on a daily basis.

Your responses to the discussion questions should relate the assigned readings and viewings to the discussion topic and should not consist only of personal opinion. Your opinion is important to the discussion, but it is also important that you add connections to the material to support your views. Without a foundation in the literature, your opinion has little professional value. For example, “Based on Trevino and Nelson’s stance that cultural relativism creates an environment where unethical behavior is justified through the cultural discourse (year, P#), the discussion should center around……” This type of statement allows you to connect your views to the literature. This is possible even when you are providing personal examples.