Legal issuesdiversity

1
Legal issues/diversity

• Difficult class. Perhaps one of the most
  challenging. Get into statistics.

2
Legal issues and HR.

• Employer can be sued for what types of labor
  practices?
• Generate a list.

3
Why do these laws exist?

• Keep in mind business lobby is commonly seen as
  stronger than the labor lobby.
• Do these laws provide a comparative advantage or
  disadvantage for American businesses. Explain.

4
HR Departments are eventually called as critical
defendant witnesses in civil and criminal suits

• Be asked to explain policies and why variations
  in policies occurred.

5
Need to be familiar with

• Scope of employment Law (note there is another
  course on this subject).
• with basic legal theories.
• with legal procedures.
• Effective risk management

6
Can not discriminate in work place

• Subtle discrimination as case suggests.

7
Legal system hinges on several elements

• Distributive and procedural justice
• Validity and Reliability.

8
Distributive justice

• Treating others similarly with rewards and
  discipline.
• Examples

9
Procedural justice

• Is the process consistently applied to all.

10
If incorrect employment action

• Grievance process in place.
• Actions could be discipline related, harassment
  based, compensation, abusive supervisors,
  promotion.
• Usually over discipline but could be positive
  issues.

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What does a grievance process look like.

• Policy usually in handbook.
• Lists what can be grieved/not grieved.
• Discipline is always there. Questions about
  opening it to other issues such as abusive
  supervisors.
• Define terms.

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Define the process

• How to file a grievance.
• Who reviews the grievance (peers and supervisors,
  standing committee or special committee).
• Ability to go to arbitration or mediation.
• Information exchange processes
• Usually a final oversight by HR. Mostly to
  determine if the process has been followed
  appropriately.

13

• Need to consider it an informal court process.
  Both Plaintiff (usually employee) and Defendant
  (usually a supervisor) must have opportunities to
  respond.

14
Imagine the case with a grievance process.

• What information would plaintiff defendant
  share?.
• What questions should the committee be seeking
  information about to clearly understand the
  situation.
• Why is this better than just a group of higher
  ups making a decision?

15
Biased standards

• Consistency in Rewards
• Consistency in Procedures
• Standards discriminate.
• Example Height and being a police officer.
• College degree and bank teller (not seen as entry
  level management position).

16
Good Management is good Risk Management.
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Why do I say this.

• How does good risk management used to support and
  develop a good workforce that promotes
  organizational productivity. Think about your OB
  course. What are some of the desired
  consequences of procedural, distributive justice.

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Steps in Good Risk management/good management

• Standards for Promotion, hiring, compensation
  need to be valid and reliable.

19
Reliability is the easiest to understand

• Consistency in assessing if individuals meet
  standards.
• Sources of inconsistency. Ratee inconsistency.
  Rater inconsistency.
• Examples of Ratee inconsistency.
• Selection tools. The job interview.
• How many have a good and bad interviews.
• How many of you have used more than one resume
  when looking for a job.

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List goes on and on.
21
Rater inconsistency

• Largely between raters. But also same rater.
  Again job interviews.
• Thank about student evaluations. Are they
  consistent across students?
• Compare against and standardized computational or
  typing test.

22
Why is consistency important.

• Increases confidence in assessments.
• Statistical and reduction in error term. Easier
  to establish Validity.

23
Validity

• Does standard use to make an HR decision actually
  relate to job performance.
• Future job performance (selection) or current job
  performance (Performance appraisal).

24
Examples

• HR director job position. Specifically, what
  would be used to predict future job performance.
  What would you use as a selection standard?

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Different types of validity

• Contentlogical Predetermined attributes based
  on job/organizational analysis
• Criterion or predictivestatistical
  demonstration. Anything that statistically
  predicts performance. Performance and criterion
  both measured reliably. Then correlate.
• Are the two best
• Construct validity, but less useful.

26
Again good management is good risk management
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HR job is to ensure that

• Appropriate standards with valid and reliable
  measurements are used rather than first or
  general impressions.
• That standards are not inherently biased against
  protected groups.

28
We will be focusing on validity and reliability
when come to HR tools.
29
Legal Theory

• Two approaches to discrimination

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Disparate treatment

• Treated differently than others with similar
  qualifications.
• Examples Not hire someone because the are
  pregnant.
• Not hiring an Hispanic in Iowa because they would
  not stay in area without other Hispanics.

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• Not hiring a Moslem due to dress.
• Not promoting a woman because the all male
  subordinates would not accept her.
• Asking only women in an interview if she has
  children
• Ignoring test score results to select a minority
  who is qualified in other ways.

32

• Two employees caught stealing. Fired the white
  employee but not the minority employee. Same
  act.
• Intangible--glass ceiling--sports talk.

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Proof

• Plaintiff must be a minority
• applied for and was qualified for the job based
  on company standards.
• Rejected
• Job remained open

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• Defendant then
• Show reasons for actions taken.
• What are policies, were the policies followed,
  was there reasonable judgement--ie is this a
  common way decisions get made.

35

• Plaintiff must show reasons are pretense and
  really governed by bias.

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What really happens?

• Nothing consistently done the same all the time.
  Exceptions are done. Plaintiff capitalizes on
  this. Then takes any context statements as
  motivations for bias. Easiest with internal
  hires to demonstrate this. Class action cases.

37

• Defendant attacks the credibility of the
  plaintiff. Character assassination.
• Whoever comes out least scarred wins.
• Adversarial approach

38
Adverse impact

• Policies or procedures provide defacto
  discrimination.
• HOOTERS Table attendants.
• What do you think?

39
Process

• Statistically demonstrate discrimination by 80
  rule (see the book).
• Defendant says process is valid (Bona fide
  Occupational Qualification)
• Plaintiff must show alternative process is better.

40
Hooters

• Male applicants and female applicants. Make it
  up.
• Hooters-valid. Its in the business of catering
  to a traditional male audience.
• Customer preferences are hard to discern and thus
  discriminatory (actual past case history in
  airlines).

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Risk Management

• Work with line decision makers.
• Training
• Selection
• Performance appraisal
• Rewards

42
Risk Management is Cost and benefit. Think about
direct and opportunity costs.
43
Wrap up

• Not much time and a lot to cover.
• Need to be sensitive to policies, their
  enforcement, and validity. Choices. Each
  employer is different. OK to discriminate at
  HOOTERs by sex.

44
Affirmative action and its cousin Diversity
45
Everyone to write down a definition of

• Affirmative action.
• Diversity.

46
What is the controversy?
47
Case discussion

• In teams, case. You are the grievance committee.
  Outsiders so easier. Do not know people.
• What is the problem and what should be done about
  the problem? What programs?
• Report Back.

48
Affirmative action

• Designed to proactively prevent discrimination.
• Was there discrimination
• How many of you felt something needed to be done
  to prevent this?
• How many of you would see this as affirmative
  action?

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Differences between

• Voluntary
• Court ordered Affirmative action.
• Problems--no have women as middle managers. So
  what do you do?
• See p. 195

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Affirmative action

• Now more focused on diversity.
• Video on Dayton Hudson.
• Celebrate differences we all have and share.
  Avoid negative stereotypes. Offensive jokes.
  Open acceptance of all. Tolerance for diverse
  ways to approach the work environment.

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What is the pay back for diversity programs.

• You generate them?

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Summary

• EEO and affirmative action have major impact on
  all HR activities.
• Difficult due to line-staff problems. How to
  avoid.
• Command and control vs Incentives and positive
  culture.
• We will revisit these issues throughout the
  course.

53
Bring a job description next class

• Read Quantum and Miller cases. Consider, the
  type of fit that is important in that
  organization. What does HR do to accentuate that
  type of fit. Would you recommend other actions?
• Need to read Werbel and Johnson. Three types of
  fit, PG PO and PJ fit.
• Strategic HR.
• Read Werbel and Johnson. Be prepared to do
  person-group fit.