How to Avoid Discrimination Based on National Origin

The American workforce is becoming increasingly diverse and as immigrant job hopefuls enter into country from all over the world, the kind of languages that we see in American workplaces, will probably become even more diverse in the years ahead. Employees must factor in that discrimination based on national origin is a very real concern for you in your organization. If you have a workplace that is linguistically diverse, discuss how you can prevent lawsuits with an employment law firm in Los Angeles.

There are various challenges that come with employing a diverse workforce. If you want an English-speaking environment in your workplace, you may be within your rights to insist that employees only speak English in the office environment. However, a rule that allows flexibility for employees to use a non-English language when there are no customers around is much more likely to be accepted without problems.

Rules that are too stringent and prohibit any other language inside a workplace is much more likely to be contested in court. However, a rule that allows flexibility for employees to use another language when there are no customers around is much more likely to be accepted without problems.

You also have to consider how you will manage an increasingly diverse number of accents that you will see the workplace. This is a special concern when you have a customer base that doesn’t necessarily want to deal with executives who speak with an accent. These are dangerous grounds for an employer to tread – you can’t blatantly decide not to hire person, simply because he has an accent.

If the person’s accent does not impede on another other person’s ability to understand what he’s saying, then you may not have grounds to reject him because of his accent. However, if the accent is so pronounced that another person will have problems hearing what he’s saying, especially in a conversation on the phone, you may be on safer ground. Speak to an employment law firm in Los Angeles about your legal responsibility and rights in such situations.

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