Age Discrimination in Hiring
I previously wrote about the age discrimination verdict against Staples. Last week, NPR published a story about a study by David Neumark and two other professors of economics at UC Irvine showing that the call-back rate for applicants drop as applicants’ ages increase. Older women witnessed lower call-back rates than older-men and “dropped by around a quarter when you go from the young group to the middle-aged group . . . . And they drop by another quarter when you go from the middle-age group to . . . around age 65.” Section 12940 of California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act prohibits age discrimination in hiring, selection for training programs leading to employment, and in other terms, conditions, or privileges of employment. Additionally, employers must “take all reasonable steps necessary to prevent discrimination and harassment from occurring.” Although discriminatory hiring practices are not always blatant, and many job applicants fail to get hired without knowing the true reason why, employers found in violation of the anti-discrimination laws wind up entangled in expensive lawsuits. One such lawsuit was a federal class-action lawsuit against … Continue reading
Hostile Work Environment – Lessons from Project Runway
Let’s do something fun today. Today’s post will discuss 3 reasons why cliquish work environments cost businesses money using last week’s episode of Project Runway appropriately titled “Can’t We All Get Along” as a practical example. The 3 reasons are: 1. Drop in Productivity – Employees who are excluded from the group at large or not considered part of the “in-crowd” at work generally dread coming to work, are less likely to contribute to the company, and the presence of cliques divides the company into groups that usually don’t work well together. This causes a drop in productivity and the company to miss out on some great ideas that excluded employees may have shared otherwise. 2. Individual stress to employees – The cost here is two pronged: a. Employees who are excluded at work generally suffer from stress-related issues such as headaches, hypertension, and other physical manifestations of stress (real or imagined) that lead them to call in sick. Which circles back to the drop in productivity discussed above. b. Should the cliquish work environment rise to one that is … Continue reading