As a business owner, you likely must wear many hats. Not only do you have to work diligently to meet customer or client demands, but you must also promote a healthy and productive workplace. As you may suspect, discrimination in any form can destroy the morale of your workforce.
In business, it is often an effective strategy to be pro-family. After all, successful workers often have a healthy work and family balance. Still, because pregnancy discrimination exists in the workforce, you want to be sure your organization steers clear of it. Here are four warning signs you may have pregnancy discrimination at your jobsite.
- Denied promotions
Your female employees work as hard as the men in your organization. To keep top talent, you must reward hard workers of any gender with promotions and other incentives. If a manager within your company denies a promotion to a pregnant woman, though, you may have to fight a discrimination charge.
- Repeated negative comments
Often, pregnant women and expecting fathers enjoy sharing their news with colleagues. While there is nothing wrong with helping your employee celebrate an imminent arrival, you do not want to allow off-color jokes or snarky comments to work their way into your organization. Eventually, a pattern or practice of misbehavior may constitute pregnancy discrimination.
- Exclusion
As you know, your employees all have unique insights they bring to every meeting. If someone in your organization starts excluding a female employee who is expecting a baby, though, you may not only have an organizational problem. You may also face a discrimination charge.
- Unfair criticism
Regular employee reviews are a good way to discuss successes and areas for improvement with everyone on your staff. If glowing reviews turn to bad ones during a woman’s pregnancy, however, you may have to consider whether something besides your worker’s performance is contributing to the harsh appraisal.
Running an effective organization is sometimes more challenging than it is at other times. Still, if you notice the warning signs of potential pregnancy discrimination, you must take immediate action to remedy the problem. If you fail to do so, you may both lose a fantastic employee and face civil consequences.
