Activity - Legislation
Take a moment and think about your own experiences with legislation that firstly had an impact on your recruitment, selection and induction and continues to influence the conditions under which you are currently employed. Make some brief notes in response to the following questions.
- What are the indicators in your own organisation that reflect both the spirit and intent of the various employment legislation and, in particular, equal employment opportunity (EEO) and affirmative action?
- Where does responsibility for these areas rest? Does the status and position of the person (or persons) responsible reflect the importance placed by your organisation on this aspect of the business?
- To what extent are EEO and affirmative action considered integral parts of all aspects of the employment relationship between you and your employer?
- When you have completed this activity, read the following case study as it will provide you with feedback for the activity. It will show you how one organisation upholds EEO and anti-discrimination legislation.
Case study
Responsibility for upholding EEO and anti-discrimination legislation at Star Books rests with each employee. Managers are educated in the legislation and there are policies to support it. They are held accountable if their team members do not understand or support these guidelines.
The human resources department is responsible for ensuring everyone in the organisation understands EEO and anti-discrimination legislation. Some of the ways they do that include:
- including a checklist on recruitment forms to ensure that EEO legislation is adhered to
- training new staff on discrimination and EEO during orientation to ensure all staff understand these policies.
Another way they support EEO legislation is through their affirmative action program. Statistics are collected about employment and the number of women and minority groups at management level. Special programs, including mentoring and management development programs, are run for these groups to encourage them to progress to management level.
Your responses to the questions above have given you an opportunity to reflect on your own experiences and to document your evaluation of your organisation's ongoing EEO practices. You will no doubt appreciate that good EEO practices are not limited to the more public actions such as creating an advertisement that does not contravene the relevant legislation.
It has relevance and impacts on all aspects of HR from determining appropriate selection criteria to deciding who will be offered overtime or a place on a training program. So let's look more closely at the various definitions and concepts associated with this area of HR practice.