Impact of Prejudice and Discrimination on Public Sector

This report discusses how prejudice and discrimination affect individuals and working practices in the public sector. It highlights that fair discrimination is essential for enhancing performance and achieving goals. The report also notes that prejudice and discrimination have negative impacts on mental health issues, stress, or depression. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of addressing these issues to improve public services.

Speech- Discrimination

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Discrimination is defined as the practice in a particular business for treating people or
group of people less fairly or have partiality as compared to other people or groups (Edelman,
Luca and Svirsky, 2017). The term fair behaviour is defined as the behaviour of a person without
any type of partiality between the persons. Thus, the following report is totally based on the
speech that gives the correct picture of unconscious bias, prejudice and discrimination with
individuals at workplace.
MAIN BODY
Discrimination is introduced as the mean in which the person is treated in different
manner as compared to others (Lauren, 2018). It is also distinguishing differences between
things or people that is based on their race, sex, national origin, age or many other
characteristics. It has taken huge place in workplace. Fair behaviour is termed as behaving in
equal manner with all the employees that are involved in certain workplace. There are many
types of prejudice which is based on number factors that includes following-
 Age- it is a practice that is specially protected by the law. It is that practice that makes
person age unfair and becomes that factor in terms of deciding the receiver of a new job,
promotion or other benefits.
 Gender- This type of stereotyping refers to attitude of the members towards particular
gender as all women, all girls, all men and all boys. This gives birth to sexism which act
as a belief that one gender member is inferior to another.
 Race- Racism is also known as profiling employee according to their race. The person is
treated according to the colour of their skin. This also includes hair texture or facial
features.
 Mental or physical disability- discrimination in an organisation is based on physical and
mental disabilities. Thus, the employees that are involved must meet certain conditions to
be considered as disabled.
 Pregnancy or parenthood- this type of discrimination is illegal. Employees of particular
organisation are required to handle the pregnancy in same way as handling normal illness
of a person or any other condition.
Direct and indirect discrimination
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Direct discrimination is termed as that situation where someone is treated as less
favourably due to their sexual orientation, their identity of gender, their perceived sexual
orientation, or sexual orientation to someone they are close to (Oaxaca, 2015). This includes
family, friend or relative.
Indirect discrimination is termed as that policy of practice that is applied to everyone in
similar way (Roberts, Davies and Jupp, 2014). It may have worse effect on some people or
others.
Impact of direct and indirect discrimination on working practices.
As per the case studies, it has been analysed that discrimination has become prominent
topic in public as well as private services. Due to this, it have received scholarly attention. Thus,
indirect discrimination have been granted with lack of attention instead of highlighting fact that
today cases of direct discrimination are more common. Furthermore, indirect discrimination
mainly occurs when an individual acts in a way that interest the individual to be favoured in
systematic manner still there is no involvement of direct discrimination.
In addition to this, indirect discrimination measures in such way that does not
distinguishes person on their face and is never considered as a trouble for anyone involved in an
organisation. The major disadvantage is that discrimination is done because of their group
membership.
Further impact includes-
 High turnover- if employees feel that they are treated in unfair manner they will try to
leave the company in the first chance they will get to (Schmitt, Branscombe, Postmes and
Garcia, 2014). They would not even try to make the arising situation in order to work as
it is working. They will quit their work as soon as possible for them. Thus, discrimination
has great impact on employee turnover.
 Low morale-discrimination in any work environment creates that atmosphere where
employees literally feel that they are not valued. This can also happen when the workers
in a particular organisation will feel that they are punished without any reason or has
been given more difficult projects in comparison to others. The financial investment will
require hiring new employees and also will need to train them that may also strain budget
of a company. If the employees that face discrimination at workplace finds the
unqualified employees are moving up ladder than this can affect them and they may view
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it as something that is so ingrained in the culture of corporate and they can't get around it.
Thus, productivity may breakdown as this may affect the employees and they may stop
working together.
 Employee conflict- the discrimination that occurs in workplace act as a fuel in jealousy of
a person and this creates huge conflicts among members. This makes them feel that they
are not judged in fair manner depending on their efforts towards particular task. This
types of bias also affects the trust of employees towards each other and also towards the
leadership style of a company. Thus, if employees of particular organisation feels that
they are subjected and undergoing discrimination, then it may create or grow angryness
or depression occurs in them. This may lead in increasing negative feelings towards the
company or the leader or even on customers or clients. This may result in negative factors
that may affect the whole business.
 Legal actions- if discrimination is proved by any one employee in a particular
organisation than they can bring legal action in terms of the stated company. Thus, if this
case is not solved by the commission than they may bring suit against that company in a
court.
Prejudice refers to affective feelings towards a person or a group of person and it is
based upon solely on the group of members. The origin of prejudice is in 1920 and as the time
passes in 1996 it cannot treated in singular and characterized from different character types. This
is actually used to preconceived and feeling towards a people because of the discrimination
between people in UK (Sergent and Stajkovic, 2018).
The types of prejudice are as follows:
Racism which means that physical characteristics determine the cultural traits and be
separating people into hierarchies that is actually based upon the race.
Classism It means that discrimination is based upon class such as social and economic
classes and the idea of separating the people which are based upon caste.
Homophobia: It is a range of negative attitude that discriminate the people towards a
homosexuality and hence public sector is faces some prejudice based upon gender.
Nationalism: it is an emotion which is based upon common culture and characteristics
which basically produces the policy of national independence.
Ageism: Discrimination that is based upon the age of the people (Whitley and Kite, 2016).
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Stereotype is actually based upon the race, eternity and age or sexual orientation. Further
it may be positive as well as negative and basically it is used to characterized black people which
are used in earlier in American History for characterized Irish and Eastern European Aboriginals
(Prejudice and Discrimination, 2018). It is come from the society and may reused to describe the
newly subordinate groups.
Implication of prejudice for Public services:
 The basic problem faced by the public sector is domestic violence, crime and death and
as a result this sector is still faces many problem regarding prejudice.
 Social protest is the implication that also leads in public sectors. Many of the services in
public also believes that public sector have been passed over for the promotion as well as
job because of the colour of the public (Morris, 2014).
 Unemployment is also the another consequences which is lead by prejudice and as a
result many of the people in UK remain unemployed. The high turnover is another
problem which it is also
Effect of Prejudice as well as discrimination on victims and perpetrators:
 The victims or the sufferers also have negative impact because of prejudice such as poor
performance in the society. They feel ashamed when they discriminated in the working
place or in the society and as a result their performance of working is also decline.
 Even the minorities women also faces stereotype threats in such a strong way that it
creates negative effect upon their physical performance. Therefore, discrimination is also
leads to stress to the victims and these sufferers are suffering from other mental and
health issues such as depression. The rates of anxiety are also higher among women and
even the posttraumatic issues also play a role in other mental health challenges.
 Discrimination as well as prejudice also leads affect of the performance of an individual
and they also lead to poor performance that further they did not harm their self- esteem.
Even many researchers also shows that discrimination also increases the likelihood of
self- disrupt.
 In addition to this, discrimination as well as prejudice also leads to mental health an some
of them also start taking drugs in order to get rid for some time which is no good for their
mental or physical health.
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Effect of Prejudice as well as discrimination on organization and their customers:
discrimination as well as prejudice also affect in negative way and this are as follows:
 Discriminatory practices affect the discriminatory practices in the public sectors and this
is also affect the job satisfaction of all employees and even the promotions and bonus
should also be rewarded so that their working performance will automatically enhances
(Amodio, 2014). Even due to discrimination, the motivation of the employees also
decline.
 The customer loyalty also got decline and as a result due to discrimination as well as
prejudice the customer will start removing their trust towards a brand and this further
leads to loss or minimizes the profit.
 The production level of an organization also start declining because the recruitment and
selection procedure is done with discrimination and it is also lead to many problem. The
employees who have the calibre also did not selected because of their race or age. This
further leads to slows down the production level of the company and as a result the profit
of the company also minimized.
 Moreover it also causes harm to the brand image of the company and even the reputation
of the company may affect. The discrimination as well as prejudice may also affect the
clients directly such as if the production level of the company decline and it also leads to
many conflicts between employees and the turnover or sales of the company decreases.
 The liability of the company start increasing because of discrimination as well as
prejudice (Mackie and Smith, 2016). While on the other side, many laws are made in UK
in order to protect an individual form many problems which are directly related to
discrimination but still it is not followed by many company and hence the overall brand
image of the company affected.
CONCLUSION
By summing up above report it has been concluded that discrimination as well as
prejudice affect individual as well as working practice negatively. Such that report also
concluded that discrimination and prejudice also leads to mental health issues and stress or may
be depression. In public sector, if the fair discrimination is done then it will help them to enhance
the performance as well as attain the actual goals and objectives of the company. While on the
other side, prejudice and discrimination are two different things though it means to discriminate
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people based upon age, gender and class. Report further concluded that prejudice as well as
discrimination also affect public sector and their services in negative way.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Amodio, D. M., 2014. The neuroscience of prejudice and stereotyping. Nature Reviews. 15(10).
p.670.
Edelman, B., Luca, M. and Svirsky, D., 2017. Racial discrimination in the sharing economy:
Evidence from a field experiment. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. 9(2).
pp.1-22.
Lauren, P. G., 2018. Power and prejudice: The politics and diplomacy of racial discrimination.
Routledge.
Mackie, D. M. and Smith, E. R., 2016. From prejudice to intergroup emotions: Differentiated
reactions to social groups. Psychology Press.
Morris, J., 2014. Pride against prejudice: Transforming attitudes to disability. The Women's
Press.
Oaxaca, R., 2015. Sex discrimination in wages. In Discrimination in labor markets. Princeton
University Press.
Roberts, C., Davies, E. and Jupp, T., 2014. Language and discrimination. Routledge.
Schmitt, M. T., Branscombe, N. R., Postmes, T. and Garcia, A., 2014. The consequences of
perceived discrimination for psychological well-being: a meta-analytic
review. Psychological bulletin. 140(4). p.921.
Sergent, K. and Stajkovic, A. D., 2018. Prime and Prejudice.Applied Psychology.
Whitley Jr, B. E. and Kite, M. E., 2016. Psychology of prejudice and discrimination. Routledge.
Online
Prejudice and Discrimination. 2018. [Online] Available through: <
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/sociology/race-and-ethnicity/prejudice-and-
discrimination>.
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