No one wants to work in an unpleasant work environment. However, if you believe your negative workplace experience crosses the line into employment discrimination, you may have a legal cause of action. People who exhibit and perpetuate discriminatory or abusive behavior typically do not make their intentions clear. Therefore, identifying workplace discrimination may be difficult.
However, the following five signs may be strong indicators of illegal behavior. Are you facing employment discrimination?
1. High Turnover Rate
If your company seems to continually recruit heavily for workers all year due to a high resignation rate among employees, this is a sign employees are not happy with their workplace. While a high turnover rate is not alone indicative of a discrimination issue, most people have a degree of tolerance for an imperfect work environment. Therefore, if a large number of employees leave the company shortly after being hired, the phenomenon may be caused by a serious issue within the company, and employees should be mindful that there may be a problem.
2. Suspicious Interview Questions
Workplace discrimination may be apparent as early as the interview process. An interviewer who asks questions that reference a stereotype or are otherwise inappropriate may be more likely to continue the inappropriate behavior after hiring you. Many companies must comply with diversity policies; however, not all managers readily agree with diversifying the workplace. For this reason, members of a protected class may be hired. However, abusive, discriminatory behavior may persist once the employee begins work at the company.
3. Strategic Assignment Of Work Duties
Workers who are the target of discrimination are often given lesser tasks or tasks that are impossible to successfully complete. Discriminating managers often employ this tactic to re-enforce the stereotype that people who belong to certain groups are incompetent in the workplace. According to
Gittens & Associates, this work tactic may also be used specifically to build a case for having the employee terminated.
4. Demeaning Conversation Style
Part of what makes a workplace unpleasant for workers who are subjected to discrimination is the manner in which discriminating coworkers or supervisors speak to them. If you are consistently spoken to in a harsh or belittling tone for no apparent reason, or if discriminatory jokes are told and offensive comments are made in your presence, it is likely that you are experiencing the effects of employment discrimination. This is especially true if the comments consistently and specifically reference race, gender, religion, age, or sexual orientation.
If you think you are being discriminated against, it is important that you contact a lawyer to discuss your case. Don't try to fight this problem alone.
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