Term Paper on The Challenges within HR Department
The government regulates the practices of
Human Resource Management at many levels. Which employees are recruited, how
they are compensated, what benefit they are offered, how the firm
accommodate them when they have children, and how they can be terminated are
all managerial challenges that Human Resource Department facing. A firm’s HR
department has considerable responsibilities with respect to HR Laws that
affect HR issues. Considerable financial liabilities can occur when HR laws
are broken. Organization may also face a public relations nightmare when
discrimination charges published. Several challenges confront manager
attempting to comply with HR law. These include legal, laws complexities,
maintaining fair employment policies, and consequences of laws.
Title VII of The Civil Rights Act of 1964
Title VII of the civil right act of 1964 is universally seen as the most
important pass to date. This law is enacted while seething civil rights
conflicts of 1960s prior to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, open
and explicit discrimination based on racial issues were wider. The Act
itself had several sections all of which are aiming at prohibiting
discrimination in various part of society. (BNA’s Employee Relations Weekly
1993) For instance, Title VII prohibits employment discrimination based on
race, color, religion, sex and national origin. The Civil Rights Act of 1991
amends several sections of Title VII. Title VII defines unlawful
employment practices, establishes the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC), outlines its role in enforcing the Act, and establishes
record keeping requirements. Title VII primarily prohibits discrimination in
employment on the basis of race, color, religion, racial background or sex.
(BNA’s Employee Relations Weekly, 1993)
Sexual Harassment
Over the last few years, the number of sexual harassment lawsuits has
dramatically increased. The courts have recognized that workers may sue for
sexual harassment not only where a supervisor conditions employment-related
benefits on an employee's submission to sexual proposal, but also where the
employee must undergo unpleasant, sexually related conduct that has been a
part of his or her organization's culture and environment (Platt, H.A.
1994).
There are two types of sexual harassments in workplace. Quid pro Quo
harassment occurs when submission to sexual stipulates by a manager of
supervisor has been made a condition of continued employment or tangible job
benefits, or where an employee has been told to endure the surroundings or
they can't work there. It is considered to be discrimination on the basis of
sex and protection is offered under Title VII. (Platt, H.A. 1994)
The second type is Hostile Work Environment where harassment occurs when a
behavior of co-workers, supervisor, customers, or any one in work setting
get sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical
conduct of a sexual nature when the conduct has the target of unreasonably
intruding with an individual's aptitude to perform his/her job, or creates
an frightening, hostile or offensive working conditions. Examples of such
conduct could include sexual advances or comments, offensive language,
regularly excluding females from "male" company activities, obscene posters,
notes or written communications, unwelcome "touching", and suggestive
comments in the work place (Platt, H.A. 1994).
HR Managers and supervisors need to closely monitor the work environment,
because the firm could be held responsible for the harassing conduct of one
employee toward other. HR people are responsible to control employees who
engage themselves in conduct violating employment discrimination laws. Under
U.S. Supreme Court case law, a hostile work environment occurs when “the
workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and
insult that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of
the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment.” (BNA
1993)
Pregnancy
In 1978 Congress amended Title VII to state clearly that women are protected
from discrimination based either on their ability to become pregnant or on
their actual pregnancy. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 requires
employers to consider an employee who is pregnant in the same manner as any
other employee who has a medical condition. This law states that a company
must design an employee health benefit plan that provides no coverage for
pregnancy. These are strict requirements, as evidenced by the following
case.
“Johnson Controls manufactures batteries.
In 1977, in response to increasing medical evidence that the lead levels to
which some of its workers were exposed could harm fetuses (but not adults),
Johnson asked its female employees not to work in particular jobs if they
were planning to become pregnant. Between 1979 and 1983, eight female
employees became pregnant even though they had levels of lead in their blood
that were potentially dangerous to the fetuses. The company therefore
adopted a policy that excluded all women capable of becoming pregnant from
jobs in which they would be showing to unsafe lead levels” (Auto Workers v.
Johnson Controls, 1991).
'English-only' rules
Whether an employer can form a policy that restricting workers to speak
English language only from speaking any other in the workplace. In September
1999, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued the University
of the Incarnate Word on behalf of 18 Hispanic housekeepers who were
allegedly subjected to an unlawful English-only policy. According to the
complaint, the university's director of housekeeping required her
subordinates to speak only English while they were at work (even during
break periods). Many workers complained that they had hard complying with
the rule, because they spoke little or no English.
The disagreement over English-only policies
The EEOC has a long history of conflicting English-only policies in the
workplace. These policies, the federal agency contends, often distinguish
against employees based on their national derivation in breach of Title VII.
Accordingly, the EEOC has selected guiding principle regarding when an
English-only policy will be acknowledged as unlawful. If the policy
restricts employees from speaking other languages at all times while in the
workplace, the EEOC will likely find that the rule violates Title VII
guidelines. A policy requiring workers to speak only English at all times in
the workplace creates burdensome situation in workplace environment. If an
employer believes it has a business necessity for an English-only rule, then
HR people must notify workers of the common circumstances when speaking only
in English is mandatory and the consequences for breaching the rule.
The Civil Rights Act of 1991
The legal aspect of these amendments are fairly technical, their impact is
very real for many organizations (Bureau of National Affairs 1991). Among
the most important effects of the 1991 amendment are:
The employers bear the burden of proof in a discrimination case. Once the
applicant or employee files a discrimination case and shows some
justification for it, the organization has to defend itself by providing
that it had a good job-related reason for the decision it made.
To avoid unpleasant impact, many organizations had created a policy of
adjusting scores on employment tests so that a certain percentage of
protected-class applicants would be hired. Amended Title VII prohibits
quotas, which are HR adjustments of hiring decisions to ensure that a
certain number of people from a certain protected class are hired.
The Equal pay Act 1963
Under this Act, men and women must receive equal compensation for equal
work. The work require not be identical, but it must be considerably equal.
It is job substance, not job titles, which ascertain whether jobs are
significantly equal. Specifically, a sex-based remuneration difference
violates the law if the jobs are in the same establishment, need
substantially equal skill level, effort incorporated, and responsibility,
are performed under identical working environments (Greenlaw, P.S., kohl,
J.P 1995).
For example, a temporary employment agency assigned a female to a temporary
job as a hospital aide. The female discovered that the agency also had
assigned a male to a temporary job as an "orderly" at the same hospital, at
a higher wage. The female worker files charges against the agency and the
hospital, alleging that her job and that of the male orderly were noticeably
equal, and that the wage disparity dishonored the Equal Pay Act as well as
Title VII. Her charge against the hospital also challenges an inequality
between her wages and those of permanent male aides and orderlies at the
hospital.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) prohibits discrimination
towards people who are 40 or older. When first enacted in 1967, it protected
people aged 40 to 65. Subsequently, it was amended to rise the age to 70,
and in 1986 the upper age limit was removed entirely.
For instance, “ 57-year-old computerized control salesman for GE Fanuc
Automation was the only employee terminated during a “reduction in force” he
was replaced by six younger sales representatives. He brought a lawsuit,
claiming that he was fired because of his age, and a Detroit jury awarded
him $1.1 million in damages and lost wages and benefits. Employers have lost
several age discrimination cases because terminated employees had evidence
that supervisors had told jokes about old age” (Harper, L. 1994).
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
The most current of the key EEO laws is the Americans with Disabilities Act
(ADA). Signed into law in 1990 and progressively implemented since then, ADA
has three major sections. Title I contains the employment provision Title II
and III concern the procedure of state and local governments and places of
public accommodation such as hotels restaurants, and grocery stores. The
employment requirements began to be enforced for the approximately 264,000
U.S. employers with 15 or more employees on July 26, 1994 (Martinez, M.N.,
1990).
The central requirement of Title I of the ADA is as follows:
Employment discrimination is illegal against persons with disabilities who
are able to execute the essential junctions of the job with or without
rational accommodation. Apparently, persons who are blind, hearing
impaired, or wheelchairs bound are individuals with disabilities. But the
grouping also includes people who have a controlled injury. For instance, a
person with epilepsy is disabled even if the epilepsy is controlled through
medication. The impairment could be physical or mental, and not due to
environmental, cultural, or economic causes.
How Human Resource Department Handle these challenges
Every organization needs to develop a policy in order to prevent harassment
and avoid liability from their shoulder. Employer liability for claims of
sexual harassment can be minimized or limited by taking actions such as
implementation of particular policies against sexual harassment and
procedures for promptly remedying any problematic situations. In hostile
environment harassment cases, such procedures may actually isolate employers
from liability altogether. In quid pro quo cases, these measures should at
least enable employers to determine potential harassment and take
appropriate actions as necessary.
The following are steps HR department needs to create an acceptable policy.
The policy must be able to:
• Prevent the incidence of harassment
• Encourage employees to report occurrence of harassment at the initial
possible instant;
• Be conscious of the related laws, thereby defending the employer from
liability.
Mostly, sound management practices will not only help HR managers defend
against EEO lawsuits but will also contribute to organization’s performance.
Human Resource department can handle the challenges by implementing these
Five specific management practices in workplace: Providing training,
establishing complaint resolution process, documenting HR decisions, being
honest and asking only for information HR department need to know. Employers
can avoid many pitfalls associated with HR challenges by engaging in
productive management practices.
Works Cited
Greenlaw, P.S., kohl, J.P (1995). The equal pay act: Responsibilities and
rights. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal.
BNA’s Employee Relations Weekly, (1993) EEOC meets new, higher burden of
proof in race bias case in California.
Auto Workers v. Johnson Controls, 1991, 55 FEP Cases 365-382.
Platt, H.A. (1994, March), Nonsexual harassment claims hit HR’s desk. HR
magazine, 29-34.
Bureau of National Affairs. (1991), Civil Rights act of 1991. Employee
Relations Weekly
Harper, L. (1994) Labor Letter, The wall street Journal
Martinez, M. N. (1990), Creative ways to employ people with disabilities. HR
Magazine.
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