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The best reason to cultivate a diverse, inclusive workforce is that it helps your business succeed, as demonstrated by two recent studies by McKinsey & Company. An inclusive work environment broadens your talent pool, enhances the employee experience, improves customer service, and drives innovation.
If you're like many business owners, you might think equal employment opportunity (EEO) is a given. Why wouldn't you bring the best and the brightest on board? Yet it takes more than a commitment to the idea of equal opportunity to promote an inclusive workplace.
It takes careful planning, a solid framework, and active engagement. This article will help you translate good intentions into concrete actions to create an inclusive workplace.
The EEO movement has its roots in the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which required men and women doing substantially equal work to receive equal pay.
That law was quickly followed by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), which prohibited employment discrimination and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
Title VII specifically barred discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in hiring, firing, layoffs, compensation, benefits, promotions, training, and other terms and privileges of employment. The law also prohibited retaliating against employees who file discrimination complaints.
Over time, additional classes of workers were protected against discrimination with the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), which protects employes over 40; the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 (PDA), which amended Title VII; the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA); and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA).
On June 15, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision that Title VII's sex discrimination protections encompass sexual orientation and gender identity. Previously, LGBTQ employees were protected from discrimination in fewer than half of states.
The Court ruled that "it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex."
Since their enactment, EEOC laws have been continually tested and reinterpreted by the courts. For example, in 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Ledbetter v. Goodyear that employees had 180 days from receiving a new salary or raise to file a pay discrimination complaint.
In other words, after six months without complaining, you were out of luck. In 2009, the legislature fired back with the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which basically reset the statute of limitations on complaints with every paycheck.
Employees can now challenge a pay disparity even if they have been paid at that salary for years.
So how can a small business ensure EEO compliance across all HR processes? These five steps will help you become a true equal opportunity employer.
To ensure an inclusive hiring process, you need to actively pursue diversity with every hire. These tips will help you get there:
The law requires equal pay for substantially similar work. Consider these tips to ensure that your employees are being rewarded for their contributions:
Many discrimination complaints come from employees passed over for promotion. Make sure you're developing your talent to its full potential with the following tips:
It's tempting to think of harassment in terms of overtly hostile actions such as inappropriate sexual overtures, offensive speech, and bullying. But the EEOC defines harassment as "unwelcome conduct" based on sex, religion, or other protected characteristics.
A pattern of unwelcome conduct creates a hostile work environment and opens you up to discrimination charges. To avoid that fate, consider these best practices:
Employers can’t take dverse actions against employees in response to a discrimination complaint. To avoid retaliation, consider the following:
Equal pay laws apply from the first employee. Employers with 15 to 19 employees are also covered by Title VII, the ADA, and GINA, and at 20 employees, they are covered by the ADEA. But there's no need to wait for a threshold. Businesses of all sizes have much to gain by welcoming diversity into their workplaces.
Employees in protected classes may ask for a reasonable accommodation to allow them to do a job. For example, a worker with vision impairment might request dictation software, or a worker might ask for a certain day off to accommodate a religious practice.
If a worker requests an accommodation for a protected characteristic, you must make a reasonable effort to accommodate the request unless you can show that it poses an undue hardship on the business.
In addition to intentional discrimination, EEO laws bar employment practices with a disparate impact on workers protected by the law. For example, a physical fitness test that includes lifting 75 pounds will eliminate more women than men.
The test might not have been designed for that purpose, but in practice, it has that impact.
Employers may pursue practices that have a disparate impact only if they can show that they are "required by business necessity." In this case, the employer would have to show that employees in affected positions must be able to lift 75-pound items in order to do their jobs.
EEO is very much what you make it. You can look at it as a bunch of legalistic snares you have to navigate as part of HR compliance. Or you can use it as a framework for creating a better employee experience and a more successful business. The opportunity is yours.
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