Imagine you are the HR director at ACME Financial Services – Employment Discrimination

Prior to beginning work on this discussion,
Read Chapter 2 in Applied Psychology in Talent –
“Discrimination” is a word commonly used without a definite and universal meaning. Within the employment context, however, discrimination is defined as “giving one group an unfair advantage over other members of other groups” (Cascio & Aguinis, 2019, p 18).

Even though a job position may have more applicants than is needed for the job and exclusion is implied, organizations must take care to know and avoid violating federal and state employment laws.

Imagine you are the HR director at ACME Financial Services. The CEO has advised you to only hire Asian males that appear to be between 35 and 50 years of age since many of ACME’s clientele seem to believe this population has great insight into financial matters. As the HR director, you know federal and state laws prohibit such practice.

Identify a specific section in Chapter 2 of your course textbook that assures everyone equal opportunity and how you would respond to the CEO using this section. Include in your discussion an example when exclusion fair employment practice does not violate federal and state fair employment laws.

Your initial response should be a minimum of 300 words to Support your response with at least one peer reviewed scholarly resource in addition to the text

Employment Discrimination

The first vital thing would be to summarize all relevant legislation to make it easier for him to understand how this act could amount to discrimination and instances when discrimination is considered acceptable. This way, the CEO can understand the concept better and avoid liability in the future in case someone is not in a position to offer advice. The purpose of Title VII is “to protect employees and create equality in the workplace, where there were significant disparities before, by prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” (Bond, 2018, p. 228). It would be illegal to discriminate against Asians as this is a protected class (national origin) under the constitution. Similarly, age and sex are protected classes, and such discrimination could lead to lawsuits against the company. After gathering all necessary details, I would compose a formal letter to the CEO concisely to respond.

Dear CEO of ACME Financial Services

I appreciate your advice on the groups to hire for the company and did further review to assess the possibilities. However, after checking the provisions of the Department of Labor and getting additional information from our attorney, I advise that we refrain from committing to the plan of hiring only Asian males between age 35 and 50. According to the law, the organization would not be compliant. It would amount to a violation of the equal opportunities law, particularly Section 703a of Title VII. This section prohibits discrimination concerning individuals’ compensation and employment privileges because of their color, race, sex, or national origin (Aguinis and Cascio, 2019).

Title VII allows discrimination based on “religion, sex, or national origin” in instances where religion, sex, or national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of a particular organization. For the company, the law would disregard the idea that only Asian males aged 35 to 50 years can provide financial services.

The only way we can get protected from discrimination law is through federal clearance or due to national security reasons; this does not apply to our case.

If you have any other concerns or questions on this issue, please let me know.

Sincerely,

HR Director,

ACME Financial Services.

References

Bond, S. (2018). Married on Saturday and Fired on Monday: Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College: Resolving the Disconnect Under Title VII. Nebraska Law Review, 97(225).

Cascio, W. F., & Aguinis, H. (2018). Applied psychology in talent management. SAGE Publications.