Supervising and Legal Issues

INTRODUCTION

Supervisors are faced with various legal issues. They must avoid discriminating against their employees or potential employees, whether it is intentional or unintentional. The various types of discrimination are age, disability, equal pay, national origin, pregnancy, race, religion, retaliation, sex, sexual orientation, and sexual harassment. Also, supervisors are also faced with health and safety issues for employees, which could lead to legal problems for the company. Some safety and health issues include injuries on-the-job and proper housekeeping and maintenance. If these issues are prevented, not only will the company be pleased but the employees as well because they do not feel discriminated against and are provided a safe and healthy place to perform their jobs.

DETAILS

Discrimination is a major factor in legal cases against employers and comes in various forms. Though our society has improved by leaps and bounds over discrimination regarding women, ethnic minorities, physically challenged individuals, and other people who have been prone to discrimination, it does unfortunately still exist in today's workplace. There are imbalances in the higher positions, the pay received for doing the same tasks, and other important gaps that still exist, based on nothing greater than discrimination. It is impossible to deny that many forms of discrimination, including sexual discrimination, are still very present in today's workplace and it is very important for a good supervisor to be able to handle himself or herself to prevent it.

There are also other ways that discrimination may show it's ugly head on the job. It can start as early as the hiring process, where a supervisor may hire one person over another without justification of abilities or experience. It may also go so far as sexual harassment, where the supervisor does not take one person as seriously as another merely based on their gender, and or the employee is seen only as a sex...