Title Vii of the 1964 U.S. Civil Rights Act

Title VII of the 1964 U.S. Civil Rights Act

Title VII of the 1964 U.S. Civil Rights Act was amended in 1991. This act prohibit discrimination against employees based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. This applies to private and public colleges and universities, employment agencies, and labor organizations. This act also extended protection to include barring against discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, sex stereotyping, and sexual harassment of employees. However, this act does not include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and marital status. The legal theory of harassment evolved out of Title VII, but the law itself does not mention the word harassment. The U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted that if there is any hostile work environment it will violate Title VII. When the harassment is so severe that it makes the employee uncomfortable or creates an abusive working environment, a violation of Title VII has occurred. There are major provisions of the Title VII. The first provision is making employment decisions based on protected class status is illegal. As an employer, you may not limit, segregate, or classify employees based on protected class status that leads to adverse effects. The second provision is Bona Fide Occupational Qualification which states “reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the organization.” That basically means the quality or an attribute that employers are allowed to consider when making decisions on hiring and retention of employees. The third provision is “discrimination” based on seniority systems, merit systems/quality and quantity, veteran’s preference rights and national security reasons, job qualifications based on test scores, backgrounds, and experience are all legal, even if they may correlate with race, gender, color, etc. The fourth provision is shall not be interpreted to require preferential treatment. The last provision is retaliation is illegal.

Disparate impact happens when employer’s practices have had a disproportionately negative effect on members of a protected group. Disparate impact first came into light during the Supreme Court Case Griggs v. Duke Power. The court found that prior to the effective date of Title VII; the company openly discriminated on the basis of race when hiring and assigning employees to plants. The company required their employees to take test that had nothing to do with job performance and this requirement disqualifies a protected class at substantially higher rate than white applicants. The four-fifths rule was established by the Griggs v. Duke Power. Using this test allows us to see if there is any disparate impact within any company. An example of disparate impact would be if you were working for a company and they make you take an exam that has nothing to do with your job or job description. Another example would be if you were in a full classroom and the teachers forced only the minorities to take one test to pass the entire class, but give the white students in the class many opportunities to do well in the class.

Title VII has made a big impact for human resource practice in organizations today. Human resource managers have to be especially careful on hiring employees because if they do not, they can cause some serious lawsuits for the company. For many human resource managers, they must use the four-fifths rule in order to see if there is any violation of the Title VII law. Title VII has allowed for more diversity in the workforce and has allowed human resource managers to give everyone a chance at a job. It has opened a lot of doors for minorities. It has allowed people to earn their position in their company and not let their race, color, national origin, etc. get in the way of a promotion. The significant of Title VII to organizations have been drastic and promising. I believe that without it, there will be plenty of discrimination in many aspects, in the work force and in the many organizations. This act has shown to really work because human resource managers continuously are careful not to break any laws in fear of being sued.

Job analysis

A work analysis is a systematic process of gathering information about work, jobs, and the relationship between jobs. There are steps for a job analysis; the first step is to define the required outcomes and measures derived from the strategic plan, the second step is to define essential tasks, activities, behaviors, required to meet or exceed requirements establish in step 1 (this is where you would describe relative importance and frequency of these tasks), the third step is to define necessary knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics required to perform the activities, and the last step is to define the where and how of the job. The main goals of a job analysis are description of observables (which includes products, outcomes, kinds of materials, and people included in the decision process), description of work behavior (independent of personal characteristics of particular people who perform the job), and verifiable and reliable (organization must maintain records of the work analysis data, and be able to justify job analysis judgments. A job analysis could be very important because it ensures that the company’s selection process in selecting applicants are valid and defensible. Information from a job analysis is used to determine job requirements, training needs, salaries and in other personnel actions, such as promotions and performance appraisals. Job analysis data is used to establish and document competencies required for the job and identify the job-relatedness of the tasks and competencies needed to successfully perform the job.

One example of a job analysis method used today in organizations is the critical incident technique (CIT). This approach is the qualitative. It is specific because it focuses on observable behaviors that have been exhibited on the job. It also describes the context in which the behavior occurred, indicates the consequences, outcomes, or products of the behavior, and references actual behavior in a specific situation with no mention of traits or judgmental inferences. This technique involves observation and recording of examples of particularly effective or ineffective behaviors. If this method is used correctly, it will identify tasks or behaviors that lead to ineffective and effective job performance and uncover overall skills, attitudes, knowledge or values that contribute to effective and ineffective job performance. This technique is more open ended so it allows the applicant to really show what they have been through and how they worked through problems that they faced in a particular job. It gives the manager a sense of the applicant and how they would deal with problems and challenges in the open job.

Job relatedness