Dealing with discrimination claims in the workplace

Discrimination claims can reveal a lot about the workplace and hidden problems. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that employees who are raising workplace issues are not treated properly. Hence, it’s important to know the right way to respond to discrimination claims. Companies have a really bad history when it comes to dealing with these issues. In the past, 63% of employees who submitted discrimination claims lost their jobs. This likely means that the business didn’t pay as much attention as necessary to the claims or they had a negative response. Before getting into the details, it goes without saying that employees who make a rightful complaint shouldn’t be fired for doing so. 

Responding to discrimination claims

Discrimination can happen for a number of reasons, including race, age, gender, sexual orientation, pregnancy, religion and more. There are laws in place that prohibit discrimination in the workplace but that may not stop certain individuals. Discrimination can be very damaging, especially if it’s happening indirectly, as it can leave the victim confused and unsure of whether what they’re feeling is right. 

When an employee comes forward with discrimination claims, here are a few steps to consider:

• Speak with the employees
• Provide employees with resources
• Ask for further evidence
• Initiate an investigation
• Use learnings for improvement

Speak with the employees

Before doing anything, it’s essential that a manager or the HR team has a 1 to 1 talk with the employee who is making the discrimination claims. During the meeting, they can assure them that they will be taking their complaint seriously and ask for more details or any available evidence. They can then advise them on what process will be followed. 

Regardless of the claims, the company should also listen to the accused employee. They should question whether the claims are real and if they have evidence to prove their side. For a less severe incident, if proven, the process may be able to close with a stern verbal and written warning as well as training on unfair bias. 

For more severe incidents, an investigation might be necessary to understand the extent of the problem. Before starting, the organisation could ask other employees to come forward with their stories, if they have any, without being specific. This could highlight whether the incident happened to only one person or more affected and whether the discrimination is frequent. 

Provide employees with resources

Before taking the next step, it’s critical to ensure that the employees’ well-being is taken care of. It would be great to provide them with a support person they can talk to or professional mental health services they can reach out to. 

Employees should also be provided with resources that inform them of their rights during this process. They need to know what they can and can’t do, what the company’s duty of care is towards them, and what their options are. It’s crucial to remember that individuals may have never been in this position before. This could result in a lot of uncertainty and confusion as they could wonder if they have to seek legal advice or not, even if the claims don’t lead to an investigation.

Confusion and lack of information can lead to rash decisions that are not well-educated and can put the employee in a worse position than before. 

Ask for further evidence

When discrimination claims are made it’s necessary to try and understand how big the problem is. 

• Is this a situation between two employees? 
• Are more individuals involved? 
• Is one person creating the problem or more? 
• Are there more types of bias that the employee is suffering through?

Coming forward with discrimination claims can be a very tough decision to make as the individual may be scared of potential consequences and backlash. They might fear that they will lose their job or ruin relationships with other colleagues. 

Initiate an investigation

Once the initial evidence has been collected, it’s time to consider whether those show the necessity for a deeper dive into the discrimination claims. If an investigation is a must, then the organisation will need to find the right investigator to take over the case. They will have to be:

• Impartial
• Empathetic
• Well-organised
• Experienced on the topic
• A good listener
• Ethical
• A critical thinker
• A good communicator

Those and other qualities increase the chances that a better investigation is carried out. All sides of the story will be taken into account equally, the parties involved will have a smoother experience. Once an investigator is selected, they will be primarily responsible for carrying out the investigation process and diving deeper into the discrimination claims.

As part of the investigation they will need to:

• Speak to all parties, including any witnesses
• Work closely with the organisation and abide by policies
• Collect evidence
• Review and determine the authenticity of the evidence
• Write an investigation report

Use learnings for improvement

Reviewing the evidence and outcomes of the investigation can reveal a lot about the staff and the workplace culture. There could have been bystanders who witnessed the workplace but weren’t willing to speak up or defend their colleagues, even through a private report to HR. 

The learnings can contribute to improving the following:

• The initial response after receiving the discrimination claims
• The investigation process
• Workplace culture and policies

Looking back at the whole process, the team may decide that they didn’t act quickly enough or with enough sympathy. There could have been an unequal treatment of the parties involved or an assumption of the final result based on past instances. 

The business can also use the investigation as a way to strengthen workplace policies and make them clearer and more inclusive. The current response, if it was nearly flawless, can then be used to guide more responses in the future and build on past learnings as each case could be different. 

Disadvantages of underestimating discrimination claims

The disadvantages of discriminatory behaviour can have great consequences for employees and the business itself. These include:

• Decreased morale 
• Fear of speaking up
• High staff turnover
• Lower productivity
• Loss of talent
• Increased costs

Decreased morale

When employees see that discrimination claims are consistently neglected, then they are more likely to feel undervalued. The repetition of inappropriate behaviour is likely to impact their mental health and decrease their work satisfaction. 

Fear of speaking up

Once employees see that a colleague’s discrimination claims are not followed up on, others will take that as a sign to stay silent. This will lead to the creation of a toxic work culture, and the same attitude will be applied to other areas of the business. For example, an employee may disagree with a business idea or a potential partnership but they won’t voice their opinion due to the fear of retaliation. This can result in multiple wrong decisions as the company won’t have all the necessary information. This also applies if employees notice other types of misconduct such as fraud.

High staff turnover

When employees are placed in a toxic work environment, their first instinct is to try and escape. This means that the business will constantly experience high levels of staff turnover as people become less tolerant of unethical behaviour. 

Lower productivity 

When employees want a break from discrimination, the first step is to take a few days off to look after themselves. This can cause a drop in productivity as days off across departments can accumulate. Moreover, the decreased morale is likely to result in lower quality of work as staff aren’t motivated to perform and reach their goals. 

Loss of talent

Ethical businesses with healthy work environments are likely to attract better-quality employees as individuals tend to value collaborative and inclusive workplaces. However, for places without an appropriate response to discrimination claims, talented employees will be the first ones to leave. It also means that the company will struggle to hire new talent as well since a first look at the workplace culture will drive them away. This is especially the case when unethical workplace practices become public. 

Increased costs

Increased costs can happen in a number of ways. They could be the result of lawsuits due to discrimination cases and their related compensations. They could also occur due to the high staff turnover as the business will need to continuously advertise new positions and allocate resources to interviewing, onboarding and training new hires. Another way costs could indirectly increase is due to lower productivity and efficiency. Staff who are excellent at their job may choose to leave, meaning that the company will suffer from decreased output. 

Are you looking to investigate discrimination claims?

To ensure greater efficiency and faster outcomes, Polonious assists investigators in multiple industries in achieving a more streamlined process. We help them set up workflows that are ideal for their case, create reminders and develop progress updates for the parties involved. Confidentiality is a priority for us, that’s why we provide our clients with a secure system that can store evidence and enable them to carry out online interviews through our Simple2Connect integration.

Do you want to learn more? Book a demo today!