COLLAPSE SUBDISCUSSIONAngela AndersonYesterdayApr 30 at 2:32pm
Manage Discussion EntryHi Marcus, excellent explanation of the differences between disparate impact and disparate treatment. Bothdisparate impact and disparate treatmentrefer todiscriminatorypractices.There are federal laws that prohibit job discrimination based on race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, age, military status, equal pay, pregnancy, disability or genetic information and prohibits both "disparate treatment" and "disparate impact" discrimination (Youssef-Morgan & Stark, 2020). Some examples ofDisparate Treatment and Disparate Impactinclude:
Example 1: Disparate Treatment
- If only African American applicants are required to take a pre-employment assessment test.
Disparate Impact
- If you test all applicants and only African Americans are eliminated based on the results of the assessment.
Example 2: Disparate Treatment
- During the annual re-screen of all of your employees, you re-screen all of your female employees and only half of your male employees.
Disparate Impact
- During your annual re-screen, the results from the background check showed only female employees had new criminal record convictions that Examples of Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact
Both examples violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. One area many organizations get tripped up on is unintentional discrimination. At the end of the day, discrimination is still discrimination, even if it’s not intentional—and as such, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) specifically notes that discrimination that occurs based on having a negative impact on a specific group (even when that was only a by-product of the situation) is still illegal. I saw the Dollar General case. Do you think Wal-Mart has practiced disparate treatment on any of their previous lawsuits?
References:
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission-Prohibited Employment Policies/Practices (eeoc.gov)https://www.eeoc.gov/prohibited-employment-policiespractices#:~:text=It%20is%20illegal%20for%20an%20employer%20to%20discriminate%20against%20a,)%2C%20disability%20or%20genetic%20information.
Youssef-Morgan, C. M., & Stark, E. (2020). Foundational Legal Concepts. InStrategic Human Resource
Management.
YesterdayApr 30 at 10:30am
Manage Discussion Entry
Marcus, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate your thorough explanation. As I was reading through your thoughts it drew me towards the idea that mechanistic jobs need to exist less and less as we modernize and repeatable unthinking tasks to AI and machines. We are certainly creating the capability to have machines replace many unthinking tasks and many thinking tasks. The addition of AI to the workforce actually creates new ethical considerations, including how to account for accidents and how AI will impact the human worker (Lin, et al., 2011).
References:
Lin, P., Abney, K., & Bekey, G. (2011). Robot ethics: Mapping the issues for a mechanized world.Artificial Intelligence,175(5-6), 942–949. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.artint.2010.11.026
YesterdayApr 30 at 2:45pm
Manage Discussion EntryHi Marcus, thanks for your in-depth analysis of the two approaches. As you stated, to understand how to delineate between the mechanistic or motivational job design approaches, one must understand the concept of job design. According to Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, and Wright (2019), job design is a method of characterizing how work is performed and responsibility for the work that is required for the specific job. Of course, in many situations, work that needs to be done is highly complex, and no single individual is likely to have all the required skills. In these situations, the work may be assigned to a team on a project so that work can be accomplished with “all hands-on deck”. This is something that is becoming increasingly popular in contemporary organizations in the U.S. and world-wide. Youssef-Morgan and Stark (2020) share that to increasean employee'smotivation, itmaybenecessary
toredesignthe jobtomakeitmorechallengingortotransferthem, which may be a better fit for their skills set.Essentially, one must have knowledge of the job and the tasks for the job. With this in a mechanistic approach the employer would be more focused on simple structured work that can potentially enhance efficiency. For example, an employer could utilize a data-based program to manage task to keep track of medical records. A motivational approach to job design, which focuses primarily on job characteristics in relation to psychological factors and motivational potential. One example of motivational job approaches could be when an employer provides quarterly or yearly enrichment classes that help employees advance in the company.
I view the mechanistic approach in my organization as “standard work”. This approach is designed to ensure that our fundamental work is standardized to ensure that we meet objectives to accomplish our execution goals. The motivational design should allow workers to be motivated to perform better when they find satisfaction in their jobs. Research suggests if jobs are interesting, motivating, and meaningful, this often translates into a productive workforce that will work to meet the goals of the organization. For example, I may like my job, but if I can’t be motivated or challenged to move ahead, I may not be motivated, but willing to accept the status quo. Would that be an acceptable position to take in today’s environment and what techniques would you employ to keep your workforce motivated? Thanks
Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B., & Wright, P.M. (2019).
Fundamentals of Human resources management (11thed.).
New York: McGraw-Hill.
Youssef-Morgan, C. M., & Stark. E. (2020).Strategic human resource management: Concepts, controversies, and evidence-based applications. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.