POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO AVOID DISCRIMINATION IN MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES

Abstract?

Discrimination is one of the current problems nowadays. The objectives of this study are to identify and analyze the causes of discrimination among employees in multinational companies, and their influence and provide workable solutions to avoid it. This study seeks to address the following research question: How can the CEOs of multinational companies eliminate the acts of discrimination among employees? Semi-structured interviews with 5 employees were employed in the study. The findings indicate that CEOs of multinational companies should organize social events to avoid discrimination among employees and update their teamwork productivity.???

Introduction?

Multiculturalism at the end of the twentieth century had a considerable influence on forming multinational companies and changes in society. Sadri and Tran claim that a range of people with different gender, social and ethical backgrounds in the workplace have become common around the globe (2002). Nowadays there are more than sixty thousand multinational companies and more than five hundred thousand subsidiaries. However, increasing diversity on the job also raises the number of discrimination acts in society. Therefore, employees started creating their own demographic features according to gender, religion, age, and education to compare themselves with their co-workers. Those properties have a bad influence on their productivity (Chattopadhyay et al, 2004). According to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission more than seventy-two thousand people become victims of discrimination, faced and prejudice attitude on their work (2019). That research is aimed to analyze and explore the causes of discrimination among employees in multinational companies, their impact and to identify practical solutions. This study investigates the research question “How can the CEOs of multinational companies eliminate the acts of discrimination among employees?”?

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Literature Review?

Workplace discrimination is widespread practice in all areas of work, as the current society’s tendency is to treat people differently because of the peculiarities they possess. According to European Commission (2008) practically workplace discrimination can be defined as less favorable treatment than an individual or a group of individuals at work, usually based on nationality, skin color, gender, marital status, age, trade union activity or other defining attributes.?

Causes of discrimination?

Racism has been identified as the conviction that race is the main determinant of human capabilities, that a certain race is better than others and that individuals should be treated differently according to their racial name. Briefly, social cognition theory proclaims that people automatically categorize others into in-groups and out-groups. The visibility and cultural importance of sex and race as core bases of stratification make them almost automatic bases of categorization. (SEEDA, 2006). Moreover, research has shown that the cumulative effects of gender and ethnic inequalities lead to a gender stratification in which native men have the best opportunities and migrant and minority women have the most disadvantaged positions in many EU states. Their employment is heavily concentrated segments of the market characterized by low pay, low status, and insecure jobs (EUMC 2003). One of the causes of discrimination is prejudice toward social status.??

Effects of discrimination?

Southeast England Development Agency (SEEDA) (2006) reported that racial discrimination in the workplace has an enormous impact both at individual and organization levels. It has been estimated that around 500,000 people are suffering from work-related stress at a level that makes them ill. Around 10 per cent of the workforce in the UK has been estimated to experience emotional and physical issues related to occupation stress (HSE, 2005). Contrada et.al (2002) noted that racial origin is reflected in the income levels of individuals and its effect on the quality of life. Studies found that discrimination leads to a decrease in workers’ motivation, physical abilities, and overall organizational performance. Moreover, discrimination does just that; it creates an unwelcoming work environment that values superficial qualities instead of job-relevant outcomes (CIPD, 2004).?

Possible Solutions?

For a company to survive such situations caused by discrimination, it is necessary to have some solutions and preventive measures for acts of racism. This can be achieved through awareness, training, and disciplinary action. Companies that strive to achieve cultural diversity are open to changes in corporate policies that provide incentives for employees who increase productivity in their departments on the basis of cultural diversity. Studies have shown that members of the majority group, especially those holding positions of authority, are often motivated to maintain their privileged positions. A primary way of achieving this goal involves excluding people from different racial groups at the same time as offering opportunities only to people who share their demographics. Therefore, racial groups face a differentiated privilege because of racial discrimination, which benefits one group to the detriment of the other. Benefits granted to the privileged group, such as higher wages, necessarily limit workplace benefits for the discriminated group (Council Directive, 2000).?

Research gap?

Although there have been myriad studies on discrimination in the workplaces, there is no investigation done to study discrimination in multinational organizations. Therefore, this research investigates the problem of discrimination among workers in multinational companies and proposes possible solutions.?

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Methodology?

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?The purpose of this section is to introduce the methods which were used for this research and provide information about the participants. To gather data, we decided to take interviews from five people, because it was easier way to collect and control information during the interview process, also one of the advantages of this method are real feelings of participant, their reaction on question, body language and extra data with examples. We asked twelve open-ended questions and some hypothetical (To see questions look at appendix 1). Before we started, we explained that all the information provided would be used only for academic study and also, we promised that personal information about participants would not be mentioned. Three of participants were males and two of them were females, there were people from thirty to fifty Interviewees were people who had and have working experience in multinational companies.?

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Results?

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This section presents the findings based on the interview analysis of five people from multinational companies to explore their work experience with multinational team, find causes of discrimination and identify activities to collaborate workers.?

Experience with multinational team??

According to the findings, all the respondents had been members of multinational team in their previous job. However, two of respondents faced collaboration problems with their teammates (further referred to as “R1”, “R2”, etc.). R5 said that he had a terrible experience; he explained further that due to lack other language skills of his team members because English was not their native language, so they were not able to understand each other and follow the deadlines. R3 had problems at the beginning of her career, she did not have much experience, so she mentioned that sometimes during projects her partners ignored her ideas and treated her with skepticism. R2 and R4 claimed that they had no problems with their co-workers and therefore they are satisfied with that experience. R1 did not find any problems in his team because he did not participate in group meetings; he explained that it was not necessary in his previous job.?

The causes of discrimination?

The participants were also asked about the notion of discrimination and possible discriminative acts they have experienced during working hours. R4 and R2 claimed that discrimination is a stereotype, which came from family and childhood nurture. R4 mentions that at the beginning of her career, she faced it from her boss since she was a young woman, she also maintains that by this period she often had thoughts to live in that company. R2 did not face any problems; both respondents affirm that the main cause of discrimination is a human's close-mindedness. R5 describes discrimination as a wrong expectation.? He explained that usually, people create their own characteristics, which they expect to see in their partners. So, when co-workers fail those expectations, people start to dislike or hate them. R5 like R2 had not been a victim of discrimination, but he was a witness to it in his team during their project. During the interview R5 could not identify the main reason for him, so he provides several causes which lead to discrimination, such as envy, misunderstanding, and spite. R1 did not have a clear picture of discrimination in his mind; he explained that due to his personality he tried to avoid any acts of inequality before it happened. R1 agreed with R5 that there are a lot of reasons for discrimination, but one of the obvious causes for him is financial differences between people. R3 perceived discrimination as a misunderstanding, which makes people argue and hate each other. R3 had the same problem as R4 due to her gender, but she also claims that when she worked abroad, she faced discrimination according to her culture and traditions. R3 clarifies that this misunderstanding is because of a human’s lack of knowledge.?

? Activities to unite employees?

To find out about changes inside the company and their influence on the human mind we provide some possible ways to avoid discrimination such as social events, joint travels, and sports and ask our participants to share their thoughts about our solutions. R2, R4 R5 claim that social events would have strong power in helping people with different backgrounds to get together. For example, they provide collective dinners as one of team build activities, where employees may understand and learn something new about their co-workers, and see their other side outside the work. R3 and R1 maintain that joint travels and sports are one of the best solutions to solve that problem. They mention that in both activities people would spend an amount of time together by helping and communicating because those activities were built to reinforce the bond between them. Also, all of the respondents affirm that if they had their own company they would do some lectures for their employees to clarify why diversity is important and make some rules where discrimination would be banned. That one, who falls down the rules would be punished, first would be a warning and second firing from the job.?

?Discussion?

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This section demonstrates the comparison between our findings, which have got from secondary data. Based on the answers that given in organized interviews, we highlighted some specific points in the data we have collected during our research. An interesting finding is that while the vast majority of employees have job discrimination against them in their workplaces by someone, they do not disclose this restriction to those responsible for combating similar discrimination in the company or organization. As for Majinge’s (2011) views on such incidents, he says that, when employees working in multinational companies become participants in events such as discrimination, they are ashamed to tell their bosses to prevent the discrimination or they are afraid of damaging their careers and remain silent about such situations. One of the interesting findings, which is like the finding from the literature review is stereotyped/prejudice, which came from childhood nurture. Moreover, this type of meta-analysis remains at its core variable, always leading to an increase in prejudice in children (McKown&Weinstein, 2003). According to our interviews, three of our participants agree with sports, events or other types of social activities can play a huge role in forming trustworthy relationships among employees in the workplace.?

According to the results that have been collected as research, we have two success criteria that give the most optimal solutions to follow.?

1. CEOs should be fair to other employees under his or her management.?
2. All workers should treat each other with respect and work as friendly colleagues.?

?Based on these two success criteria, we created several acceptable solutions using the brainwriting method:?

????? S1. Establishing constant control, the rules of etiquette on how employees treat each other and their supervisors in the workplace/office?

????? S2. In their spare time, the employee can study closely with other colleagues and organize leisure or other sports competitions for them to work as a team.?

????? S3. Develop and implement joint programs to exchange views on what measures are being taken in other leading companies in the world to prevent human rights violations or job discrimination in the workplace.?

?In order to accurately evaluate the above solutions, we used the Desirability / Feasibility / Viability framework. With this method, we compare which of the four solutions given has a greater advantage over the others.?

Conclusion and recommendation?

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This study suggests that discrimination among employees in the workplace is associated with increased stress, poor adherence, and motivation at work. Consequently, it concludes that all employers must demonstrate that they have a workforce management strategy that supports integration goals and the creation of a diverse workforce that reflects the needs of local communities. The CEOs of the companies can organize various social events since it will give their employees an opportunity to build relationships, and positive friendships within the workplace and break down the hierarchical boundaries to drive employee performance, and most importantly, engagement. Moreover, the conversations elicited by events help workers to expand their social circle but also to reduce their stress and relax. In order to implement the social events, the CEOs of the company should create a social committee charged with planning extracurricular activities for the office or department in which they work. This could include setting up networking opportunities or coordinating outings like football games or happy hours. Some social committees even organize volunteer activities so the team can serve together. The best way for a social committee to meet the needs of the organization is to ask people what they’re looking to do or accomplish. Therefore, social events can be implemented through social committee, and it can be a lot of fun for all involved.?

Reference List?

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• Chiriac and Alina (2007). Managementul diversit??ii ?n organiza?ii. Beneficii pentru angaja?i ?i companii. M?suri de implementare/the management of diversity in Organizations. Benefits for employees and businesses. Implementation measures. Bucharest. [Online] https://www.cartadiversitatii.ro/images/diversity/resurse/managementul_diversitatii_organizatii.pdf. Available at: https://www.cartadiversitatii.ro/images/diversity/resurse/managementul_diversitatii_organizatii.pdf.?
• Seeda (2002). Southeast region social inclusion statement. [Online] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/67708/annxs-glob-soc-excl-stcktke-rpt.pdf [Accessed 11 Jul. 2007].?
• Krishna Regmi, Jennie Naidoo, Sharada Regmi, Jennie Naidoo and Sharada Regm (2006). Dismantling Employment Barriers in South East England, Research by CERI, Kingston University,London. [Online] www.emerald.com. Available at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/02610150910964259/full/html?skipTracking=true.?
• European commission (2003). The costs and benefits of diversity. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities... [Online] www.coe.int. Available at: https://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/mars/source/resources/references/others/17%20-%20Costs%20and%20Benefits%20of%20Diversity%20-%20EU%202003%20ExSum.pdf.?
• CIPD (2004). Recruitment, Retention and Turnover: a Survey of the UK and Ireland, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, London. [Online] www.cipd.co.uk. Available at: https://promo.cipd.co.uk/become-a-chartered-member/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw1PSDBhDbARIsAPeTqrfdIeZsy1ND6NRBGSGCQpHgCtiJDDiQL7yEMfDANDbLk7sJR1LgalEaAmPBEALw_wcB.?
• Marie Mercat-Bruns (2016). Discrimination at Work: Comparing European, French, and American Law. [Online] www.jstor.org. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1ffjn61.10?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=job+discrimination&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Djob%2Bdiscrimination&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3Ae08d3a11022986fd1eddf345f1dddfba&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents?
• Barbara F. Reskin (2000). The Proximate Causes of Employment Discrimination. [Online] www.jstor.org. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2654387.?

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Appendices?

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Appendix1??

Research questions?

1. What picture of multinational companies do you have in your mind??
2. What is the definition of the word "multinational" for you??
3. Do you have working experience with a multinational team? If yes, how was it??
4. Did you collaborate with your teammates??
5. Did you have any problems while working with them??
6. What were the problems that you faced??
7. Did you use any strategy to avoid those problems? And what are they??
8. Could you tell me please what is discrimination for you??
9. Have you ever encountered a case of discrimination in your workplace??
10. What do you think is the main factor for this??
11. What are the outcomes of this phenomenon??
12. How can collaborative activities such as sports, camping, and events help workers with diverse backgrounds to get together??
13. If you were the CEO of this company, what would you do to overcome the discrimination among your employees??