Managing People: Discrimination, Privacy and Safety

1.

Managing People:
Discrimination,
Privacy and Safety
Skripinskiy Vasiliy
15.06D-E01/20B

2.

Topics that we
will consider
1. Creating an ethical relationship
between employers and employees
from the ground up.
2. Steering clear of discrimination.
3. Keeping an eye on privacy.
4. Making sure that employees,
products, and services are safe.

3.

Starting with four basic necessities
Fairness: Employees at every level
should be held to the same
standards of conduct. If high
performers are allowed to get away
with unethical behavior, other
employees’ morale — and thus
productivity and ethical standards
— will suffer. Likewise,
discrimination in any form can
negatively affect a company’s
culture and performance.
Communication: Most companies
are pretty good at sharing
information from the top down.
But the companies with the best
workplace environment also allow
communication to flow from the
bottom up. Higher-ups can’t fix a
problem if they aren’t aware of it,
and employees are the most likely
sources of information about
problems that canaffect a
company’s health.

4.

Respect: Employees deserve consideration
as individuals rather than simply as cogs in
the company machine. Recognizing
individual talents, skills, and goals helps
develop employees into even more valuable
members of the organization, which, in turn,
helps a company thrive.
Trust: Many managers cling to the notion
that people don’t like to work and will goof
off at any opportunity. Yet various studies
have shown that employees who
telecommute tend to work more hours more
productive than their cubicle-bound
counterparts. Certainly, companies will
always have some employees who require
more supervision than others. But, on the
whole, managers who give their staffs clear
direction and then get out of the way
achieve better results than those who hover
over their employees’ shoulders.

5.

Good managers set clear objectives for
their workers but let their workers
figure out how to achieve the desired
results. Unless employees need to follow
specific steps to ensure a quality
product, focusing more on the outcome
and less on the process is more
productive.
Employees know
what’s expected of
them.
People can acquire skills and
knowledge, but talents and affinities
are inherent qualities Good managers
identify the specific talents and
affinities that each position requires
and then seek out people with those
qualities for those positions.
Employees have the
right equipment
and supplies to do
their jobs.
Employees are well
matched to their
job duties.
To excel, workers need the
right tools. Giving
allemployees smartphones, for
example, doesn’t do any good
if their work doesn’t require
them.
When learning and growth stop, so do
creativity and innovation. Good managers
encourage employees to take the risk involved
in learning new skills, but they also match
those new skills with an employee’s particular
talents — thus getting the best value for both
the employee and the company.
Employees receive
regular, frequent
feedback on their
performance.
Praising good work is a nobrainer. Praise from peers is
just as rewarding as a pat on
the back from a manager.
Good managers foster
workgroups that encourage
and support each other.
Employees have
opportunities to
learn new skills and
grow their talents.

6.

Avoiding Discrimination
Discrimination is the act of treating
someone differently — typically by
restricting or excluding the person
from opportunities that are available
to others — solely because of that
person’s membership in a certain class
or category of people. Discrimination
almost always involves stereotyping,
or making assumptions about an
individual based on perceptions about
the individual’s class or category as a
whole.
The idea that everyone should be treated
fairly and justly in the workplace, regardless
of factors, such as race, religion, or gender,
that distinguish them from others, is a
relatively new one.
Although laws prohibit certain types of
discrimination, discrimination is by no
means uncommon in the workplace. One
reason is that both the law and the moral
arguments against discrimination contain an
awful lot of gray territory.

7.

Understanding
types of
discrimination
1.
2.
3.
4.
Ageism
Disability discrimination
Gender discrimination
Racial and ethnic
discrimination
5. Religious discrimination
6. Sexual orientation
discrimination

8.

Defining sexual harassment
Sexual harassment is a form of gender discrimination and is legally defined as
unwelcome sexual conduct (be it verbal, visual, or physical) that’s extreme or prevalent
enough to negatively affect the workplace environment. Unwelcome simply means that
you don’t want the behavior; an employee doesn’t necessarily have to complain or even
reject the behavior in order for it to be unwelcome
Similarly, employees don’t have to suffer actual job-related or psychological harm for
harassment to affect working conditions or create a hostilework environment. That is,
just because an employee continues to receive the same pay and benefits and remains
mentally healthy and stable does not mean the harassment doesn’t cause those results.
Finally, harassment can come from people of the opposite sex or the same sex, and
neither the perpetrator’s nor the victim’s sexual orientation is relevant to determining
whether the behavior constitutes harassment.

9.

Establishing and enforcing
antidiscrimination policies
Written policy helps reinforce a
company culture that’s open,
tolerant, and welcoming to workers
of all backgrounds and abilities.
Perhaps more important, though, is
the fact that written policies can
help the company defend itself
against complaints and lawsuits — as
long as it enforces those policies.
1. Provide examples of discriminatory or
harassing behavior.
2. Include discrimination and harassment
in your orientation, training, and
employee development programs.
3. Give extra training to supervisors,
managers, and executives.
4. Respond quickly and appropriately to
complaints.

10.

Protecting
employees privacy
Michigan State University study in 2004 found
that more than 50 percent of personalinformation thefts occur in the workplace, and
nine out of ten identity-theft cases involve
employee information — not customer
information. Payroll and personnel records
typically
provide all the data a thief needs to open
fraudulent credit accounts, steal from personal
bank accounts, and commit all manner of
identity-theft mayhem. And, increasingly,
organizations have a legal as well as an ethical
responsibility to protect the personal information
they collect from people.
Training and vigilance are key to protecting
employee data. Businesses should have a written
policy for reporting identity theft and security
concerns, and they should follow up with training
and communications to ensure that all
employees understand why information security
is so important and how they can help keep their
own and their colleagues’ data safe. Background
checks on employees who have access to
sensitive information can help reduce privacy
risk. Monitoring electronic files shows who’s
trying to access personal data and identifies any
potential security breaches. Finally, developing
an employee reference system that doesn’t use
Social Security or driver’s license numbers can
also help protect worker privacy.

11.

Safeguarding customer information
Business as usual these days means collecting and often keeping a wealth
of information on customers.The more information a company collects
and keeps on its customers, the more proactive it needs to be to ensure
that the data is as secure as possible.
As with employee information, the keys to keeping customer information
secure are training and vigilance. The FTC has several online resources to
help, including articles companies can use in employee newsletters, brochures
they can order or download for training on information security, and
even an online tutorial that covers the basics of protecting consumers’ data.

12.

Preserving the
company’s privacy
As staunch proponents as we are of transparency
in many aspects of business, we recognize that
some kinds of corporate information should be
kept out of the public domain. For example:
1. Trade secrets lose their value (and their
relatively minimal protection under the law)
as soon as they become public (see the
following section).
2. Premature announcements of contracts and
leaks of information or product samples can
cause legal, financial, and public relations
headaches.
On the other hand, protecting the company’s
sensitive information can raise some tricky
ethical questions.
Protecting trade secrets
When trade secrets become public, they lose
their economic value.
Trade secrets have some informal legal
protection, although those protections aren’t as
strong as those offered with patents, copyrights,
and trademarks.
Businesses have a few options to protect their
proprietary information.
1. Limit access to the information.
2. Develop security and monitoring
procedures.
3. Use confidentiality, noncompete, or
nondisclosure agreements.

13.

Ensuring Everyone’s
Safety
Businesses have a legal and moral obligation to provide safe work
environments for their employees and produce safe goods and services
for their customers. Unfortunately, because safety measures are often
expensive to implement and maintain, managers and executives
sometimes choose to cut corners — often with disastrous results.
Although specific safety standards and legal requirements vary from
industry to industry, here are some things companies can do to
demonstrate their commitment to keeping their workers safe and
making safe products:
Have the quality-control
officer report directly to a
high-ranking executive.
Start every meeting with a
“safety minute.”
Enforce safety rules
consistently, and punish
violators.
Integrate safety and quality
training into your employee
training program.

14.

Thank you for attention