Manager Training for Workplace Discrimination

Hosting annual or twice yearly ethics training for your employees is something that every company should do. Discrimination training lets employees know the ins and outs of what is deemed appropriate and which red flags to look for when behavior has crossed the line in a harassing manner. It clearly defines each individual area of discrimination and what to do if a harassing situation were to be experienced personally or within the workplace.

There are several ways that you can do an ethics training seminar. One is to take several small diversified groups to go over these topics of discussion over several days time, or you can complete it all in one full day with everyone in the company. You can hire an outsider to give an unbiased demonstration or, if you are in a supervisory position, you may do it yourself. 

Start your workplace discrimination training with a rundown of the main types of discrimination and the definitions of each pertaining directly to discrimination:

• Gender discrimination is high on the list as one of the number one discriminating complaints in the workplace. Women mostly make up the demographic in this case complaining of lower-paying jobs and lack of job promotion when in competition with a man.
• Age discrimination occurs when a person is let go of their job, or is not hired for a position, even if they are more qualified than other candidates. Companies have been known to “forcibly” ask an older person to leave their job or take an early retirement so “new blood” can come into their position.
• Racial discrimination though not as prevalent as once was, it still is active in many places of business today with people of different ethnicities being turned down for qualified positions because of the way they look.
• National Origin discrimination in most recent years has occurred greatly due to the issues that our nation faced and continues to face since 9/11. In many instances, if a person claims that they are Muslim or Arabic, an instant connotation occurs many companies immediately jump into a defensive mode, assuming that everyone who is of Muslim faith must be a terrorist. This, of course, is not correct, but ignorance is a difficult issue to get over. Discrimination training will help people understand these differences.