Legal and Ethical Issues - Harassment and Discrimination At workplace

Running Head: LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES
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Legal and Ethical
Issues
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LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES 1
Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................1
Discrimination and Harassment in the workplace.....................................................................2
Ethical Concerns........................................................................................................................4
Ethical Theories.........................................................................................................................7
Areas of Law..............................................................................................................................9
Recommendations....................................................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................11

LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES 2
Introduction
In today’s competitive business world, various ethical issues are present in companies
which affect their day-to-day operations. There is a need of clear understanding for the
employees in relation to vision of the company overall; it is essential to practice the code of
ethics for assisting employees along with procedures and policies in the workplace. There is a
firm delivery of ethical actions by companies where employees, customers and applicants are
required to be treated fairly. In companies, upholding fairness and responsibility in business
practices is one of a key value in relation to ethics while taking business actions (Nuseir &
Ghandour, 2019). The issue of Harassment and Discrimination consists of various costly
ethical issues such as sexual harassment, racial discrimination and wage inequality that
employees and employers encounter on regular basis in every country across the globe. In
discrimination, numerous types are involved such as equal pay, age, harassment, disability,
race, genetic information, religion, pregnancy, national origin, retaliation, sex and sexual
harassment. Also, the FRD (families responsibilities discrimination) is one of the
discrimination factors increasing nowadays at every level and in every industry within an
organisation (Michigan, 2019). In companies, there is need of laws for employers to provide
equal employment opportunities. In the workplace, discrimination is treating someone
inappropriately due to their personal characteristics that required to be protected by the law.
However, harassment is through which discrimination can be described that is illegal for
creation of threatening work environment that is also mentioned under anti-discrimination
laws to protect individuals (Mayhew, 2020). This paper will focus on analysing legal or
ethical issues based on previous, current or potential work environments in future. The
discussion is based on the issue of “discrimination and harassment” along with ideas related
to corrective actions to address these issues. This paper describes the issue with the help of
ethical theories such as Utilitarian and Deontology for analysing the situation. This issue will

LEGAL AND ETHICAL ISSUES 3
be further analysed by application of relevant areas of law and recommendation will be made
to reduce liability exposure and improvements in the ethical scenario.
Discrimination and Harassment in the workplace
Discrimination is prohibited within the workplace by numerous municipal, federal
and state laws about which employees and employers are not aware. Also, there are some
incidents where they are aware of discrimination being an unlawful activity that is required to
be controlled. It is essential to eliminate this eventually within the workplace as and when
addressed and recognized by human resources leadership. Such issues of discrimination and
harassment in the workplace often damage the work environment and results in lawsuits
sometimes while addressing ethical and legal conflicts in relation to employees (Roscigno,
2019). Across the globe, business takes regular transactions within the behaviour of business
ethics along with interactions of individual with customers. There can be diversity in moral
code in a business specifically where companies are responsible for ethical criteria
establishment among making compliance structures availability overall with the company
upholding the accurate conduct. In the society, it is vital to be trustworthy for dealing with
stakeholders, governments, employees, and consumers instantly (Smith, 2018).
Discrimination is treating unfairly addressed by various federal laws where “Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964” is the most inclusive law prohibiting workplace discrimination.
There are number of complaints, mediation and lawsuits pertained to discrimination in the
workplace. Harassment shows exceeding of discriminatory behaviour when individuals
engaged in the employment practices that are unfair and escalates in terms of physically and
verbally abusive. It is the responsibility of employer to provide workplace safe,
discrimination and free from harassment (Liu, Macgill, & Vora, 2016). Thus, it is essential to
provide equal opportunities while workplace promotion and free of discrimination and