Human Resources Management (HRM)
You have just been promoted to the Human Resources Department of a Fortune 500 company. Your director asks each of the HR employees to research an employment law issue and draft a memo that discusses that specific issue. Also, he wants to ensure that each employee has a clear understanding of the issue present. Therefore, you are to include in your memo either a specific case that supports this employment law or utilizes your own experience. This experience can stem from professional or personal situations in the business world as an employee or employer. Lastly, your director wants you to include any ethical issues that your company may be confronting in reference to this employment law. Consider employment law with wages and hours, OSHA, age, disabilities, and minors working.
Be sure that your focus is twofold: first, on an area of employment law and second, on a potential ethical issue within that area of law.
If you have not personally or professionally confronted an issue, consider an issue that could arise within the realm of employment law and describe it or search for a case on the internet.
Address the following in your memo:
Identify and clearly define the relevant law, either defining a legal doctrine, provisions of law, or elements of a specific cause of action.
Compare and contrast the applicable law to the employment law issue you identified.
Apply facts from your situation to the applicable law, doctrine, or cause of action studied.
Identify and briefly discuss any related ethical issues.
Your memo should be three to four pages in length, not including the title or references pages. Also, include three credible sources in your memo.
ANSWER
Age Discrimination
Memorandum
To:
From:
CC:
Date:
Subject: Age Discrimination
Increasing age discrimination claims have led to the need for Human resources to elaborate on age discrimination and a comprehensive guide on the forms of age discrimination. Our fortune 500 company has a zero-tolerance policy to age discrimination, and all the claims will be taken seriously.
Over the years, workers have been discriminated against due to their age in different organizations. Age discrimination involves treating workers or applicants negatively due to their age. Age insight has been a common employment law issue as the world continues baby boomers continue to grow older (Carlsson and Eriksson, 2019). Age discrimination has occurred in biased unfair actions, decision-making, and negative assessments such as personnel choice, promotion choices, performance review, training, and recruitment. Some of the major predictors of workplace age discrimination are negative stereotypes concerning workers from varying age groups.
Young people may encounter age discrimination by being passed over for jobs, belittled, or paid fewer wages just because they are young. An older person can also be denied a job because the employer believes that they are too old. Although both older and younger employees are victims of age discrimination, most age discrimination has occurred among older employees (Stypińska and Nikander, 2018). It’s prohibited to pursue a person for their age. Harassment entails derogatory or offensive comments regarding the person’s age. Although the law does not outlaw offhand comments, simple teasing, and secluded incidents that are not very severe, harassment remains unlawful when it creates an offensive and hostile working environment and adverse employment decisions such as demotion and victims being fired.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) protects various candidates and workers at 40 and above against discrimination on an age grounds of recruitment, hiring, discharge, elevation, reimbursement, and privileges of employment. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 eliminated all persons of a protected class based on sex, color, religion, race, and country of origin (Hunter, Shannon, and Amoroso, 2019). All employers with more than 20 full-time employees have to comply with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and pay retirement pensions and benefits. The Act was enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which is a federal agency that examines workplace and employment discrimination claims. The law has laid the foundations of equality that are expected in the workplace.
In a discriminatory age claim, the plaintiff has to prove a discriminatory action in the workplace. The individual bringing the discrimination claim to the court has to prove that the level of discrimination was based on their age and not linked to their professional conduct, job performance, and attitude. The individual has to be a member of the protected group, which includes people between forty and seventy. The plaintiff was exposed to an adverse employment action such as probation or firing. The plaintiff should show proof that a substantially younger individual filed their position from which they were discharged.
Occupational accidents in the construction industry show a relation between the injured workers and their age. The number of older workers getting injured in the construction sites is higher as compared to young workers. Construction workers’ illnesses and injuries are among the most costly across all industries. Ideally, the construction industry requires manual and physical labor. There is frequent pushing, kneeling, pulling weight, and lifting, which makes physical requirements a necessity in the job. These need to be addressed to all employees to understand the physical requirements. Due to the risk and Understanding the safety and health needs in the aging workforce in the construction industry is essential in reducing the high injury costs.
Despite the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), the employer also needs to consider the bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ), an attribute or quality that employers have to consider while making decisions on the retention and hiring of employees. The ADEA lacks bona fide occupational qualification exemption, and the ADEA demands that age discrimination be reasonably necessary regarding the business’s normal operations (Neumark, 2020). For instance, when a company is facing a financial crisis, the age factor is more likely to be used while trying to cut its operational costs by laying off individuals near retirement. However, most of these cases result in age discrimination claims costing the company more due to compensation. Therefore, the cost-cutting strategy needs to consider a balanced approach when making the financial cuts in the workforce. The Age discrimination legislation can help in addressing the number of concerns of both old workers and policymakers. The primary aim is to ensure access of older workers to the hiring and employment opportunities with other age groups and protect their employment status.
In summation, the company needs to focus on re-evaluating the employment policy and ensuring no age discriminatory practices in the working environment. Understanding the terms in age discrimination claims can play an essential role in developing policies that will counter and diminish age discrimination in employment within the company. There is a need to educate the staff on a balanced and fair approach when the company encounters a financial pinch to prevent paying more in the court fines and litigations linked to age discrimination claims.
References
Carlsson, M., & Eriksson, S. (2019). Age discrimination in hiring decisions: Evidence from a field experiment in the labor market. Labour Economics, 59, 173-183.
Hunter, R. J., Shannon, J. H., & Amoroso, H. J. (2019). Employment Discrimination Based on Age: Part II: Applying the ADEA in Employment Scenarios: Discrimination, Idle Chatter, or Something Else?. Journal of Public Administration and Governance, 9(1), 1-17.
Neumark, D. (2020). Strengthen age discrimination protections to help confront the challenge of population aging.
Stypińska, J., & Nikander, P. (2018). Ageism and age discrimination in the labor market: A macrostructural perspective. In Contemporary perspectives on ageism (pp. 91-108). Springer, Cham.
