We all have biases. Most are harmless and have little effect on other people. Maybe you don't like blue, prefer to have your telephone on the right side of your desk, or drink only organic coffee. Some biases may consciously or subconsciously affect choices and decisions you make. Perhaps you feel a connection to others who have tattoos and piercings, or maybe you find such adornments repulsive. Your feelings may influence your choices when it comes to hiring, job assignments, or promotions. However, they are biases that could cost you a potentially good employee.

Preserving Equal Opportunity

It's important for managers to recognize that while people are not equal, every employee is entitled to equal opportunity. It's equally important to recognize the role your personal biases, however subtle, play in influencing the perceptions others form about your actions and behaviors. When you're making decisions about an employee's performance, capabilities, and potential, ask yourself these questions:

• How much of this is about the employee and how much about me?

• Does this employee deserve the benefit of the doubt? An extra push?

• Under what circumstances am I making this decision? Is this decision based totally on merit?

• Whom else have I considered? What made me decide in favor of one employee versus another?

• Why am I deciding this way? What are the observable behaviors and quantifiable factors?

• Do I like or not like this employee?

• How are my biases affecting my decision?

This is not to suggest that you list your biases and send them in a memo to HR, of course. That would be of little benefit to you or the company. Your biases are your own. But by acknowledging them to yourself, you can take a step back and think when you are in uncomfortable situations. Your biases are a natural part of you. You don't need to like all of them and probably don't. They're most likely to sneak in on you when you're reacting on autopilot. When you're aware that this can happen, you're more likely to take the extra time to separate your biases from the situation and the action you need to take. The outcome might be quite different.

Crossing the Line: Discrimination and Harassment

There is a point at which biases become discrimination and even harassment. The line of demarcation is often hazy and hard to find — until you cross it. Generally, you've done so when any of the following are true:

• You draw automatic assumptions about individuals based on generalized, collective factors: “She's upset because she's a woman and women are always emotional.”

• You hire or promote certain employees for reasons that have nothing to do with their qualifications for the job, notably race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or physical attractiveness.

• You fail to hire or promote certain employees for factors not related to job abilities or performance, such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or physical attractiveness.

• People are uncomfortable around you, or they complain to others about your actions because of the way you talk about or treat people who are different from you.

Federal laws that protect employees from discrimination in the workplace have spawned volumes and volumes of regulations and procedures. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), passed in 1938, was the first of these. It established the forty-hour workweek, set a minimum wage, and placed restrictions on child labor. Its numerous revisions established equal pay for equal work and procedures for calculating compensatory time given in lieu of wages. Modified through the years, the FLSA remains the foundational legislation regulating employment practices in the United States.

Though the FLSA most likely protects the employees that report to you, ironically it may not cover you as a manager. You are exempt from (not protected by) the provisions of the FLSA when you meet the following guidelines:

• You are salaried (you receive a constant paycheck without overtime pay for extra hours worked or docked pay for missed days).

• You have “hire and fire” authority.

• You direct the daily activities of two or more employees.

• You make your own decisions about how and when to do the tasks of your job.

• You spend 80 percent of your time engaged in management activities.

Nearly 200 federal laws regulate the actions of today's employers and the environment of the workplace. Among the most significant are these:

• The Equal Pay Act, passed in 1963 to further clarify the concepts of equal pay for equal work, specifically prohibited companies from paying women less than men for performing the same job tasks.

• The Civil Rights Act was passed into law in 1964. Title VII of this federal legislation makes it illegal for companies that have fifteen or more employees to discriminate in hiring, pay, promotion, and firing on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, or national origin.

• The Age Discrimination in Employment Act, passed in 1967, makes it illegal for companies with fifteen or more employees to discriminate against people who are age forty or older.

• The Americans with Disabilities Act, passed in 1990, established requirements for companies that employ fifteen or more employees to provide “reasonable accommodations” for individuals with disabilities.

Each state has its own further set of laws and regulations, many of which are more restrictive or explicit than federal legislation. Sexual harassment laws, relative newcomers to the discrimination scene, evolved as a result of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that found sexual harassment in the workplace to be a variation of gender discrimination and thus covered under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. For more about sexual harassment and related issues, see Chapter 19.

Antidiscrimination Policies and Practices

Increasingly, discrimination is subtle and circumstantial. What looks like discrimination in one situation might not be in another. What you need to know as a manager is that behaviors that imply or reflect bias lead to perceptions of discriminatory actions. It's your responsibility to understand what constitutes discrimination from a legal perspective. There are dozens of books that deal specifically with issues related to discrimination in the workplace; Appendix B lists some titles you might find helpful.

The most important strategy your company can employ to fight workplace discrimination, as well as to keep it on the right side of the legal fence, is to have strong and stridently enforced policies that define discriminatory actions. These policies should also outline the procedures for employees to take when they feel they've been the victims of discrimination.

As a manager, it's your first responsibility to be sure you do not behave in ways that are or could be interpreted as discriminatory. Be aware of things you say and do that others could perceive as discrimination. Your intentions do not matter nearly as much as the interpretations. Second, be on the alert for discriminatory and/or harassing situations around you. Your failure to take action can make you just as liable as the person committing the actions.

Just Kidding Around or Harassment?

Unwanted social or sexual advances that create an unpleasant work environment or place pressure on an employee are illegal, a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Monetary penalties for those found in violation — individuals as well as companies — can be stiff. Career consequences can be severe. Sexual harassment takes many forms, and it involves women pressuring men as well as men pressuring women.

Sexual harassment is a complex area of law, policy, and behavior. Companies can define it in different ways, which doesn't necessarily mean they'll find the courts on their side if an employee files a lawsuit. It's important to realize that much depends on how the person who complains perceives the behaviors. The most insidious sexual harassment is often the least obvious — the male manager who stands just a little too close to female employees, makes comments that can be interpreted as suggestive, compliments female employees on their clothing or perfume. Also in the wrong is the woman manager who does the same with male employees — men are victims of sexual harassment, too, although not as often as women.

Unfortunately, what constitutes harassment is not always clear cut. Which of these incidents do you think constitutes harassment?

• A key executive asks his department coordinator to meet him at a restaurant for dinner and to talk with her about how things are going. He presents the invitation as a reward and a way to talk uninterrupted by the chaos and frenzy of the workplace. He just happens to make their reservation at a hotel restaurant. During dinner he casually mentions that he has reserved a hotel room for the night and asks if she would like to join him.

• A new director, a single man brought in from outside who is also new in town, wants to get to know the employees in his department and the town. So he asks a couple of the single women if they would like to have dinner with him and help him get acquainted with the area.

• A female manager and a male subordinate are traveling together on business. She picks him up at his apartment to go to the airport. It is summer and very hot, so he is wearing shorts. Twice in the car she tells him that he has great legs.

If you pegged each of these incidents as sexual harassment, give yourself a pat on the back. Harassment is generally in the perspective of the victim, regardless of the intention of the overture. The new director in the second scenario, for example, was dumbfounded when he learned that the women he invited to dinner complained to the human resources manager. He viewed his actions as cordial and gentlemanly. It made sense to him to ask single women to join him because he felt they would have the freedom to do so. Bad judgment all the way around! Even as he was defending himself, he could hear that he sounded just like a scenario in a sexual harassment training workshop — which is exactly what he became.