BUS124 – Work and Employment

Word count: 3113

INTRODUCTION

In today’s modern society, fair and unbiased employment opportunity is an important aspect
of any workplace, regardless of the organizations. However, discrimination is a very usual
behaviour, especially in the labour market. From national to international organizations,
from first line workers to the board of executives, and occurring in all professions and present
time companies, a choice between candidates by identifying certain differences they poses
and leading it to treat them indifferently is inevitable. This issue often occurs within business
environment, consisting of unfair treatment by their peers and superiors, and the unfairness of
job opportunities. As such, this is known as the unfair discrimination which is done on
various grounds e.g. race, religion, gender, disability, nationality. This phenomenon of
discrimination has severely affected employees in the workplace and people seeking work
(Pager & Shepherd, 2008). Hence, legislation such as The Equality Act 2010, was passed to
protect individuals within categories to strengthen meritocracy within society, promoting fair
opportunities. This essay aims to identify the constant issue of unfair discrimination taking
place at workplace and examine the barriers to employment and injustice encountered at
work by focusing on gender, sexual orientation and ethnicity. Afterwards, it will investigate
the academic literature, critically examining the claims of the topic made by the authors. The
report will then discuss the core argument based on the empirical statistics collected from
both primary and secondary sources. Ultimately, the essay will summarise and conclude the
important points discussed throughout.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Gender discrimination is one of the reason why unfair discrimination takes place in the
workplace. Throughout the history, men have always been held in higher regard than women
which only continues to depict both as unequal. Culture often portrays women as weak and
emotional, whereas men as assertive and strong, which is why this idea is prevalent. The
gender gap refers to the difference in the average hourly income of women and men
employees within the company i.e. women being paid less than men. It is a longstanding
feature of labour markets across the world which is identified as a global economic issue
affecting women in every country. Despite it has narrowed in many countries the overall
progress has been slow and is far from complete. Typically, this only happens to the women,
while men lead organizations that successful and earn high income. According to official data
on graduate earnings, women with postgraduate degree earn less than men who only have
bachelors degree. Moreover, the department for Educations graduate labour market statistics
reveal that women with postgraduate degree earn £37,000 per year on average , while men
with bachelor’s degree earn a median of £38,500. On average, male employees with
postgraduate degree earned £43,000 as compared to the females( The Guardian).Sexual
harassment is defined as the act of disregarding someone’s dignity and creating an
antagonistic, intimidating and humiliating environment for them by engaging them in
unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature. Employees specially women’s are more likely to
experience sexual harassment irrespective of the type of profession they choose as compared
to males (Roscigno, 2019) . As reported by the Young Women’s Trust, around 23% of
females aged between 16- 30 have been sexually harassed at work by their peers or superiors
but only 8% have reported it ( The Guardian). The reasons for women’s not reporting
workplace sexual harassment to HR were fear of jeopardizing their job i.e. losing the job and
their claims may not be taken seriously.

The term sexual orientation is linked to Unfair discrimination in the workplace. Sexual
orientation discrimination occurs when one person is treated less favourably in same situation
because that persons sexual orientation is towards the same gender or different gender. In
modern societies and organizations sexual orientation tends to remains to be a prejudice issue
as gay, lesbians, transgender and bisexual (LGBT) employees will continue to face
challenges from being forced to stay closeted to actually being fired.it is evident that
traditional diversity management research has given very little attention to sexual orientation
discrimination, almost like ignoring the topic as they were more focus to visible aspects like
gender, age ,religion etc. CIPD research found out that LGBT+ employees are more likely to
encounter conflicts and harassment at work than heterosexual or cisgender employees in the
company. Despite the fact, workplace anti- discrimination laws and practices have improved
dramatically in recent decades, Stonewall report from 2018 suggest that LGBT+ workers,
especially bisexual and trans/non binary employees still treated poorly. About 20% LGBT
workers have experienced discrimination during the initial stage of hiring process i.e.
Recruitment and promotion against the heterosexual applicants even though both have the
same skills and knowledge. Moreover, approximately 40% of LGBT+ community employees
feel that their firms policies are poor and would not feel confident in reporting homophobic
or biphobic bullying at work. they become victims of verbal abuse, harassment and difference
in their earnings i.e. being paid less as compared to heterosexual colleagues. As result,
LGBT+ employees may start feeling scared and alienated which will may force them to

actively hide who they are at work (McFadden and Crowley-Henry 2018, Stonewall 2018 ).

In the workplace, race/ethnicity also causes unfair discrimination, the colour of an

individual’s skin plays a significant role why there is a discrimination. Stereotypes are based
on the assumptions that the person bbelongs to a specific group, so stereotypes can be used to
describe how people of colour are viewed. It refers to the way people are judges according to
assumptions about the specific group that the person belongs to, which is based on ignorance.
There are many assumptions which can be used to explain races, they are- white people are
disciplined, black men are hostile, black women are loud and Muslims are terrorist. It was
suggested that black men experience stereotypes as their white colleges relate them to be
“aggressive black men” and as a result they go to great lengths to avoid any action which
could indicate this behaviour i.e. by intentionally altering their acts and attitude by Wingfield
(2007). In addition, Wingfield (2007) proposed that ethnic minority women were frequently
put in a position where they were forced to accept disrespectful treatment. He also proposed
that black women were often asked to show unwavering loyalty towards their white bosses. A
report on race at work was conducted where it was acknowledged that racial discrimination
and bullying is very common and frequent. The study found out that in last five years,32%of
all ethnic minority employees have experienced racial abuse and bullying from their
colleagues and clients (Ashe and Nazroo 2015).

EMPIRICAL DATA

To provide confirmation on the literature provided above, I conducted three interviews

consisting of employed people and part-time workers who may have experienced or
witnessed discrimination. This research was conducted through face to face conversations.
The interview taking place in this format as it is easier and ensures that participants point can
be highlighted effectively. The questions I prepared before each interview focused on the
candidates past experiences with gender, sexual orientation and race and ethnicity
discrimination in the workplace. nevertheless, each question asked to each participant were-
are you currently employed and if not have you ever had job? What do you discrimination is
? did you faced any discrimination in that job? Have you ever felt that employees or
employers treated you differently because of your race or gender?

The first individual interviewed was a black 18 year old boy who worked in a local
departmental store which was owned by white individual. In this interview, the young male
stated that he worked in a local departmental store during afternoon shift. He was told the job
would pay him £30. He worked at the same job there with his few of his black friends, and
there were others who worked on a separate shift who were white who were his friends. After
the end of the week, it was when he would get paid for his work along with his fellow friends
were paid £30, while other white individuals who worked different shift were paid £35. He
stated that ‘ I was extremely confused with this mishap and was informed that actual amount
to be paid for this work is £35 not £30, if he knew if something like this will happen he
would have never excepted the job.’ The excuse his employer gave was that he recently
increased the salary but he didn’t had enough to give the same wage to everyone and told that
since we work during the day so we don’t deserve it. moreover, while talking to the manager
he voiced and argument with the owner for same wage. So his employer said “ why you guys
are loud and aggressive when I clearly gave my explanation so why you want to start
argument.” The interviewee said to me that “ if I knew this would happen I would have never
accepted the job as I believe this mishap only happened because of my race as it doesn’t
make since if other individual were getting pay differently for doing the same work even
thought other who worked in morning were paid £35.”

Secondly, I interviewed while male intern of age 22 years old, who spoke about his internship
at marketing firm. Despite not personally experiencing any discrimination at the workplace,
he has witnessed unfair treatment towards another employee. According to him, some female
interns were assigned meaningless task that did not reflect their qualifications and become
victim of sexual harassment like being told sexually offensive jokes and touched unwillingly
by their superiors. Moreover, flirting, gesturing or making sexual remarks about their body or
clothing made them very uncomfortable. He felt that it was condescending to “see someone
given a task that they overqualified for and wasn’t given a different task that would suit them
better or being sexually objectified”. When he suggested one of the intern to report about this
unethical behaviour it was very shocking to hear response as she refused fearing that shew
will be fired from this internship and won’t get a job in near future without experience. He
stated that it’s not an ideal situation when they are treated poorly despite having nothing done
wrong. Hence, he believes that a positive working environment should be free from any form
of mistreatment. Furthermore, discrimination in the workplace negatively impacts workers
performance and experience.

Finally, I witnessed in my workplace unfair discrimination, while I was working as waitress

in one of the restaurants in London. My manager was hiring a new waiter and had to chose
between two people: heterosexual female with very much less experience, didn’t know how
take an order from the customer and to serve the food. Whereas, other applicant was female
trans who was very experienced and knew how to take orders and serve the food. My
manager end up selecting the heterosexual female and creating difference not on their
experience and knowledge but on their sexuality and thinking what the customers will think.
The manager stated that hiring someone from LGBT+ community will prevent the customers
to come to the restaurant, assuming how the customers are generally discriminative when
comes to LGBT+ community and have any of them working in the restaurant would be seen
negatively.

DISCUSSION

Both literature and empirical studies portray gender, race/ethnicity and sexual orientation
discrimination as harsh reality in the workplace, these converging are supported by the results
of my empirical research and academic research. This is depicted with the term sexual
harassment introduced in the literature review, defined as a method in which superiors take
advantage of women’s working within the company and humiliating them. The interview
with 22 year old male intern working at marketing firm shows how women are sexually
harassed at the work by making them feel uncomfortable or asking them to do something
sexually in order to get a promotion. When being told by the interviewer to report about such
behaviour to HR, she refused to do in fear of getting fired and not being able to get a job in
future without experience. In addition, the female interns were not being assigned the task
which they were qualified for and even having a bachelors or masters degree female interns
or women employed in the company. This shows that women are subjected to harsher
conditions as compared to males. The young male also stated that he hasn’t experienced any
discrimination at work portraying how unethical it’s to sexually harassing and treating
women at work equally.
My first interviewee provided a clear perspective on his working experience at the start of my
primary research, which demonstrated how racial discrimination occurs in the workplace. In
this instance, it is clear that he was paid less than white workers because he was paid less
than white workers. The incident is unjust since both individuals worked same job and thus
should be paid equally, illustrating how race plays a role in such an incident. This sheds light
on how race plays a role as the person as treated differently for his skin tone. In addition,
stereotypes and bullying that were presented as concepts for race/ethnicity discrimination,
were also revealed as the participant was stereotyped when he was believed to be arguing
back to the employer when asking for fair pay. The employer labelled him aggressive which
is a key stereotype characteristic for black males.

Lastly, there is a clear association between the literature review and my last interview. This
was evident that the manager of the restaurant was more inclined to hire someone who was
less knowledge and experience as compared to the someone being more capable of doing job
right and more experienced in field , only because the less experience person was
heterosexual and straight in comparison to a transwomen belonging to LGBT community.
Moreover, rather than seeing the restraint flourishing and not keeping customers happiness
in mind via their service , the manger opted to select someone inexperience because he was
more worried what customers will when they see a transwomen working. This highlights
clearly how LGBT+ community people face discrimination during the hiring process as
stated in the literature section and are treated poorly by the business world.

CONCLUSION

To conclude, gender, race/ethnicity and sexual orientation are three significant reasons why
discrimination occurs in the workplace. Due to their gender, women are subjected to
discrimination, as men are consistently held in higher regard. Resulting men to reach higher
positions. The concepts of gender pay gap and sexual harassment clearly state how women
are treated in the workplace and how they are put second to men. In addition, people of
colour receive twice as much of discrimination as they are judged on their race and gender,
this interconnection causes more disadvantage for them in workplace. They are always
burdened with stereotypes, harassment and bullying as employers treat them differently. As a
result of people of colour are forced to alter the way they behave. Secondly, In today’s
modern societies and in organizations sexual orientation tends to remains to be a prejudice
issue as LGBT community still faces discrimination when applying for a job as they are still
not accepted easily. They are forced to hide who they are from their bosses and colleagues so
that they don’t become a victim of bullying, getting fired and many more. The data collected
from primary sources clearly shows how gender, sexual orientation and race/ethnicity
discrimination affects the people working in business world, as the interviews conducted
provides the evidence. To help prevent gender and race discrimination in the workplace, there
should be a clear policy on discrimination, as this will provide an unbiased policy which
ensures that employees have a chance to voice on negative treatment in the workplace.
Alongside his regular, one-to-one catch ups between employees and supervisors will help a
establish a positive working relationship. Being gender neutral at work will help to ensure
employees that there gender identity is respected. Besides, providing regular anti-
discrimination training to companies personnel, ensures that the issue is not oversight, which
also prevents discrimination from happening.

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