Question

Most companies today broadly define diversity to include markers of identity that extend beyond those named in Title VII (or other employment anti-discrimination legislation). However, companies must comply with each anti-discrimination law. Ageism, gender, race, and national origin discrimination are still issues that the EEOC is called upon to address on a regular basis, In 2016, the EEOC addressed claims of retaliation (45.9% of claims), Race (35.3%), Disability (30.7%), Sex (29.4%), and National Origin (10.8%). Many of these claims came from companies with employee referral programs. If employees are referring from a diverse group of friends and companies are hiring a diverse workforce, what accounts for the many claims filed with the EEOC. Are these claims the exception? What do you think?

Answer 1

“The title VII of the civil rights act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in many aspects of the employment relationship. The Title VII created the Equal Employment opportunity commission to administer the act. It prohibits discrimination in employment based on race, color, age, sex, religion, and national origin.”

The employee referral program is a recruitment strategy where existing employees are encouraged by employers through a reward system to refer qualified people for the job in the company.

The claims filed by EEOC as seen in the statistics could be due to the following reasons:

1. Human behavior dictates we socialize and befriend people of similar ethnicity, religion and would refer people from the same background. This could be the reason why the company might have more Asians or more people of same ethnic backgrounds. This could be due to recruitment mostly through referrals and can be seen as a discrimination against some other groups.
2. The source of recruitment and using multiple pools to find employees can be used to create a more diverse pool of applicants and avoid legal cases of discrimination based on color, race, sex etc

You can counter this by using multiple sourcing, reevaluate your employment data and encourage diversity in the workforce. The overreliance on referral programs should be avoided.