Eliminating Racial Discrimination in the Workplace: What you need to know.

     During the current days of protest following George Floyd's killing in the USA, many callings are proclaiming that eliminating racial discrimination matters. If we go beyond politics, news channels, and social media posts to the workplace, we may find thousands of employees who suffer every day from discrimination acts including, favoritism, mocking, and prejudice, because of their organizations' bias working culture.

In this respect, if you are a business owner or you are an affected employee, this article will be useful for you. It will manifest all things you need to know about "Discrimination in the workplace": What is racial discrimination? What are its forms? What does the UAE law say about discrimination? How to avoid racial discrimination in the workplace? How should employees handle it?

Definition of Racial Discrimination

What is Racial Discrimination?

Wikipedia defines Racial discrimination as "any discrimination against individuals based on their skin color, or racial or ethnic origin. Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain group."

 In workplace settings, Racial discrimination implies any inappropriate behaviors towards a job applicant or an employee. Racial discrimination actions in the workplace are not only immoral but also it's illegal.

What does the Law Say?

What does the UAE law say about discrimination?

As the UAE is a multi-cultural country that "Accepts all" with no discrimination, The UAE legislation emphasized the anti-discrimination importance to protect all the individuals. In light of Article 1,6,17, and 18, the country stressed the importance of acceptance and tolerance for all people. The Articles Read as Follows:

Article 1: "Discrimination: Any distinction, restriction, exclusion or preference among individuals or groups based on the ground of religion, creed, doctrine, sect, caste, race, color or ethnic origin."

Article 6: "Any person, who commits any act of discrimination of any form by any means of expression or by any other means, shall be sentenced to imprisonment for a period not less than five years, and by a fine not less than Dh500,000 and not exceeding Dh1 million or either one of these two penalties."

Article 17: "The representative, director or agent of a legal entity, in case any of the crimes set forth in the present Decree-Law is committed, with his knowledge, by any employee of said entity acting in its name or to its interest, shall be sentenced to the same penalties prescribed for the committed crime. The legal entity shall be held jointly liable to settle any pecuniary penalties or compensation as ruled thereof."

Article 18: "Without prejudice to the imposition of penalties set forth in the present Decree-Law, the court shall order the dissolution of associations, centers, entities, organizations, leagues, and groups, and their branches or the closure of the same, either temporarily or permanently. Moreover, the court shall order the confiscation of money, property, tools, or papers which may be used in the commission of any of the crimes set forth in the present Decree-Law. The court shall order the expulsion of a foreigner from the country after the execution of the penalty charged thereof."

Forms of Discrimination in work

What are the different forms of discrimination in the workplace?

There are two forms of discrimination: direct and indirect. Direct discrimination involves evident and apparent acts such as paying less salary for certain nationalities, rejecting all job candidates of particular origin, and other actions that can be classified as " treatment discrimination."

Indirect discrimination involves the acts of discrimination that arise when the company says it has practices and policy that applies to every employee in the same way, but it affects some people negatively. Something can be indirect discrimination if it has a worse effect on you because of your age, gender, marital status, religion, pregnancy, and maternity or disability.

What are the significant acts of racial discrimination in the workplace?

Any different rating of people due to their skin color, racial characteristics, or mother tongue can be classified as racial discrimination which makes the acts of racism in the workplace including but not limited to:

·        Employment process that has a wide range of discriminating decisions.

·        Assigning projects and job responsibilities differ depending on the race.

·        Stereotyping (All x are x) instead of dealing with people as individuals.

·        Making sarcastic comments about any person's customs, culture, or religion.

·        Limit promotions to certain people because of their race.

·        Implementing pay discrepancies for selected racial identities.

·        Intentional or unintentional microaggressions by avoiding or excluding from events or asking questions like " where are you from?".  

While talking about hiring, firing, promotions, and dismiss decisions, the employer (represented by the HR team) is directly responsible for setting up policies that are free from discrimination against certain people or groups.

Racial Discrimination Starts in Hiring

How does racial discrimination occur in hiring?

Racial discrimination forms can be defined from the early steps of hiring: Job Advertisement, Resume, and Interviews.

1-     Job Advertisements: Requirements like " the candidate should be X nationality" includes discrimination connotations that exclude other nationalities and discourage them from applying. Nationality and race should never be mentioned in job ads. List only what will be crucial to the position.

2-     Resume: HR may filter resumes depending on stereotype factors. The candidate can be rejected because of his name, skin color, etc. and these all are forms of discrimination.  

3-     Job interviews: HR shouldn't make their decisions based on factors like names, way of speaking, family situation, or any other factor that stereotypes the applicants. Candidates should be selected based on their qualifications, skills, and experience.

How to avoid racial discrimination in hiring?

The first step to avoid anything is to set policies and procedures and confine them to the Law. Make sure that your company culture and hiring process adheres to anti-discrimination policies when it comes to staffing. Skin color, origin, sex, regional origin, and religion should be entirely removed from the hiring process. Focus on Diversity; it is essential.

To ensure equality and Diversity in the workplace starting from the early stages,

Use Bias Interrupters- it includes:

·        Creating a job advert that is free from any discouraging language.

·        Using the Applicant Tracking System to screen job applications.

·        Limiting Referrals.

·        Selecting diverse interview panels. 

·        Preparing the same interview questions for assessing the essential criteria.

·        Depending on the Skill test software.

·        Recruiting from job boards, job fairs, and conferences.

·        Writing down your decision, avoid depending on impression. Recoding the feedback will be useful for you in the future.

·        Creating an offer letter template with the same salary, benefits, and working conditions for all successful candidates.

·        Offering reason for "rejected" candidates. Make sure your reasons are constructive and will help them to improve.

Preventing discrimination in the workplace

So, how can HR promote Diversity and prevent race discrimination in the workplace?

1-  HRs and employers have to review their workplace policies and practices to remove any discriminatory behaviors.

Discriminatory policies can be found in:

·        Recruitment and Hiring

·        Employee salary and benefits

·        Employee achievement reviews and appraisals

·        Workplace dress code

·        Termination and dismiss

 "Systemic racism" is a common problem in almost all organizations because of the inherent inequality that is deep-seated into business practices.

 2- Set an Anti-Discrimination Policy

The popular race discrimination form comes through in bullying and harassment from coworkers, clients, and even managers. This is explicitly appearing in the workplaces where there is no anti-discrimination policy. Setting and anti-discrimination policy will let people responsible for their actions, and it will prevent racist behavior in the workplace.

This policy should include:

·        Types of behavior that you will consider a racial motivation.

·        An Article that you will not tolerate any kind of racial discrimination in the workplace.

·        How victims can file a complaint.

·        How you will handle the complaint.

3- Maintain equality and Diversity

Review your policies, targets, promotion policies, benefits packages, awards and recognition certificates, performance reviews, and training programs, make sure they ensure equal opportunity for all employees, apart from race. Help employees feel free and satisfied with their jobs by creating a welcoming workplace.

Your policy should adopt a zero-tolerance approach to race discrimination. Set your goals for a more diverse workplace; progress can easily be achieved with equality and Diversity.

4- Offer training to avoid racial discrimination at the workplace

Eliminating racial discrimination in the workplace is the HR professionals' responsibility, but sometimes employees unintentionally practice racial discrimination because they are not fully aware of the "discriminatory" acts. Be dynamic and train your employees to sustain a more welcoming workplace.

This training should be available for everyone, especially managers, to let them understand race discrimination in all its forms, develop new skills to distinguish what is the inappropriate behavior, know their actual rules to treat their coworkers fairly.

 5- Set an Anti-Racism Program

Along with the training, set a strong anti-racism program, to promote Diversity and equity in the workplace, that includes:

·        Reviewing and amending Systemic racism policies and procedures.

·        Creating and implementing anti-racism policies.

·        Reviewing all the disadvantages that come from hiring depending on certain factors like color or race.

·        Analyzing metrics of hiring processes to define racial discrimination practices and aim to eliminate them.

·        Making sure that there are no "implicit-bias" decisions or actions that come from any employee in everyday situations.

6- Support for handling racial discrimination

In case if there is any race discrimination complaint, HR should immediately involve in resolving it. Support can be provided by different means, including:

Supporting managers- by asking them to follow the company's strict anti-racism and equality rules and policies while handling the complaint.

Support the Victims- by treating them fairly and confidentially. Raise the complaint quietly and formally to the assigned managers. Take the evidence that supports the allegation respectfully and thoughtfully. Try to resolve the matter quickly and sufficiently.

7- Everyone has the accountability of his actions

After offering the anti-racism training and program, adapting the organization's policy, ensuring equality and Diversity, and providing support, everyone becomes responsible now for his behavior. Pay attention, and if anyone deals inappropriately or says anything refers to discrimination, implement strict disciplinary procedures. Sometimes, taking action is the best solution for changing workplace challenging problems.

Have you ever faced discrimination in the workplace?

What should the employee do if faced with discrimination at work?

In a workplace that applies comprehensive anti-discrimination policies, with conducting training, supporting and handling everyone, strengthening the managers with all required information and power to control the discriminating complaints, there are always some people who didn't get the message, who don't observe their comments and behavior and keep insisting on bothering others with their discriminating attitude. So, what should you do in that case?

·        Saying nothing is always the worst solution; you have to complain, but before raising a complaint, the employee has to " Document" any and everything related to the incident. Write down notes mentioning what racial comments you heard, who was attending the situation, who said the comment, what any attendee's response was, anything you see will be useful.

·        Read the "Employee Handbook" to know the complaint procedure for discrimination. You'll see to whom you should direct your message, supervisor, HR manager, or the company owner. If the responsible person is the perpetrator, find a trusted one in the upper management to complain to.

·        If you face any anger from the perpetrator, coworkers, or managers, keep writing down and documenting every action so that you could seek the court, documentation will be a great support to your claim.

Conclusion

    In Summary, there is an Italian proverb that states, " At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box." So, it's evident that if we seek to achieve a society of peace, we can't accomplish that through discrimination, inequality, violence, favoritism. Moreover, if we want to build a discrimination-free community, we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society. "Look at the sky and count the stars, look down and realize we are all from the same universe and stop discrimination," Bangambiki Habyarimana, Book of Wisdom