Discrimination Essay Essay

Discuss this statement in relation to the human resource practices and the issues relating to personality, perceptions and values of managers. This essay argues that discrimination is a likely occurrence during the recruitment process. It will focus upon the various forms of discrimination faced and the issues relating to personality and perceptions resulting from the mainstream perspectives, stereotypes and ideologies held by Anglo-Saxon Australians. It will then examine the human resource practices and the selection process, highlighting the discrimination that occurs due to the unrealistic and unnecessarily high standards of recruitment criteria and specifications laid out by managers for candidates. Finally it will address the impact and influence that the managers values can have upon the recruitment criteria and the final selection made. Discrimination has long been a likely occurrence during the recruitment process, becoming a major problem throughout Australian society. Dating back through Australia’s history we have continually seen society empirically group people according to their country of origin and culture. The idea of ethnocentrism has surfaced as a result of the pre-existing culture of intolerance of cultural difference. As Ho and Alcorso demonstrate, ‘Australian employers and local workers in the post-war decades had a clear interest in utilizing a workforce that was not only ethnically distinguishable from the local workforce but also considered to be largely unskilled and little educated’ (2004, p. 254). The reluctance that many employers have in their willingness to recruit migrants and those of ethnic backgrounds, as a result of a pre-disposition held, is seen consistently in the workplace and is reflected in the long-term. As Wooden notes, ‘differences in pay, occupational status and probability of employment’ between migrants and people of ethnic background, in comparison to Anglo-Saxon Australians ‘reflects differences in the average productive capabilities of the two groups’ (1994, p. 220; cited in Ho and Alcorso, 2004, p. 239).