Many Human Resource managers find it difficult to make decisions concerning disabled members of the workforce. Unknowingly to them, any unbiased decision concerning a disabled person be it hiring or promotion, is completely illegal. There are several laws put up by the federal authority to ensure that all organizations observe equal employment of people irrespective of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. the following are the major laws concerning equal employment opportunities (Auxillium West par. 1).
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
In 1992, a law concerning equal employment for all Americans who have qualifications was passed. A person with disability but qualified is one person who has all the job requirements in terms of skills, education and experience and who can perform the job functions with or without accommodation (Auxillium West par. 3).
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
All companies and other institutions containing 15 or more people must abide to this law. It states that no employer has the mandate to discriminate his employees including job applicants in terms of their race, gender, religion, national origin, color, sex etc. the institutions bound by this law include educational institutions, private employers, local governments, State institutions, etc (FIU par 6).
Civil Rights Act of 1991
This law gives the victims of workplace discrimination the right to get compensations in accordance to harm inflicted to them. This includes future losses, emotional harm and other damages that one has been subjected to. Punitive damages are in most cases received by international discrimination victims (FIU par 3).
The Rehabilitation Act
This is a law that calls upon all the employers to ensure that they uphold affirmative action for the disabled. No employer will be allowed to discriminate a job applicant based on his disabled nature (Auxillium West par. 4).
Executive Order 11246
In 1964, President Johnson signed an affirmative action law which stated that all firms that will enter into contract with the executive branch agency whose contract within a period of 12 months amounted to $ 10,000 must ensure that it complied with the affirmative action. This also included companies with more than 50 employees which had one or more covered contracts. The affirmative action plan had to be written down and be updated annually. The plan had to show effort to include minorities and females in positions they didn’t hold before (Auxillium West par. 6).
All these laws are reinforced by certain government institutions like equal employment opportunity committee.
Sears can be cited as the best example for a company which has shown effort in trying to comply with the government’s laws by not discriminating during hiring. Among its workforce of 300,000 people, 20,000 are disabled in a way or another. This strategy has been used by Sears, not as a way to ensure compliance with the ADA but as a company culture which has promoted employee morale, customer base and above all booasted the company’s chances to attain the set goals and objectives (Blanck p4).
Sears implemented the employment of disabled people in 1947 before putting up a selective placement program in 1972 which involved identifying the skills of the disabled workers and placing them in job position that could fit their condition. They have also put up a council on disability issues and also indulge in computer training for the people with disability. In addition to this, the other members of the work fore are given specialized training concerning the ADA compliance. Sears has also formed a special program whose responsibility is to assist in solving ADA related disputes. Finally, Sears participates in several forums that assist in promoting employment of people with disability. A good example is their participation in the Employers’ Committee of the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities (Blanck p26).
These are among the strategies taken by Sears to promote workplace accommodation. It is therefore the effort of the management of NL&C to ensure that all workers with disabilities are given not only physical assistance in the general production effort but also mental and emotional assistance. This can be done through educating programs for the disabled and the rest of the work force to increase awareness of the ADA compliance.
References
Auxillium West. “Equal Employment Opportunity Laws.” Legal issues. 2008. Web.
Blanck, D., “Communicating the Americans with Disabilities Act.” University of Iowa. Web.
Florida International University. “Summary of Laws Affecting the Employment Process.”. Web.