Religious discrimination is on the rise across the world and must be contained before it harms businesses and our social progress.
In this age of social media outreach, diversity of views from employees can help the platform make better decisions and provide credible avenues to the public for objective discussions on issues affecting their lives. The social media companies can lead by example in these times.
On the other hand, a religiously or politically prejudiced employee can affect others’ morale, cause a lot of headaches, bring lawsuits, and affect the organization’s ability to function cohesively.
Such individuals can waste the time of CEOs and the precious resources defending and correcting the mistakes rather than focusing on business development and creating employment.
We at the Center for Pluralism believe that the social media platform leaders should prioritize placing the right employees in supervisory positions. It is a brand-new feature and going to become increasingly important.
Without prejudice or favor to any company and with a realization that discrimination extends to all spheres of life, not just business companies, here are some cases in point where employees bring incalculable harm to their companies. Improvements in these areas through sensible fixes can make companies serve their consumers much more efficiently.
Cisco, a popular chain of stores with efficient service practices to its credit, is facing a lawsuit for its discriminative practices by one of its managers. The problem was not with the policies of Cisco but placing the wrong people in supervisory positions. An Indian American supervisor from the “upper caste” (religious supremacist) did not promote the “lower caste” employee. He believed that the employee did not deserve to be promoted because he was born inferior and must remain in the lowest rung of the ladder.
Facebook’s supervisor in its India operations, Ms. Ankhi Das rejected taking down a posting that was false and harmful to the society. Ms. Das supported the Indian leader who posted the controversial item widely perceived to be anti-Muslim. She refused to take it down, despite urging from her associates and completely disregarding the policies set in motion by Mark Zuckerberg.
That single decision has caused a lot of turmoil: The Internet is flooded with this news from the Wall Street Journal to just about every journal in the world. Mark Zuckerberg, a guru of innovation, finally moved in accordance with demands of professionalism and fired her – good riddance for the company and the society. But what a waste of time for one of the most successful social media platforms!
Similarly, other social media platforms like Twitter and tech giants like Google can benefit greatly from judicious and culturally sensitive hiring processes.
On the ground, minority communities are going through some terrifying phases of their existence in several countries. For example, a medical doctor in India refused to admit patients in the hospitals because they were Muslims. One of the patients was a pregnant woman who delivered the baby in the ambulance, and her child did not survive. Imagine if that doctor were in America and had committed this kind of horrible crime!
All this is happening at a time when it is hard to find a place of work, worship, playground, school, restaurant, theater, and other areas of public gatherings where people of different faiths, races, and ethnicities interacting, working, studying, intermingling, playing, and even marrying each other.
These interactions are bound to create conflicts. We must prevent such disputes so that each and every individual can live securely with his or her faith, culture, gender, race, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.
These practices have become commonplace. However, it is a significant liability for global corporations hiring employees from India, a few of whom would discriminate against Dalits in particular, Muslims, and Christians in general. Should we have a place for them in these corporations?
It is just the beginning; a few among the white supremacist and the brown supremacist will create a mess in the coming years for the global corporations who hire people without character references.
The Center for Pluralism asks global corporations to consider the following suggestions as they can help you avoid getting sued by their employees’ reckless actions, and also elevate their impression among people.
- Update hiring policy — Only hire individuals who respect and practice inclusivity and do not bring religion or politics to the workplace. How can that be achieved? Ask each of your current employees to submit social testimonies. If it is a Muslim, ask him/her to provide verifiable testimonials from Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, and others. Likewise, if it is a Hindu, ask him/her to produce similar testimonials from non-Hindus.
- Remove poisoned employees – Remove the existing bad apples in your basket. A Hindu Doctor was our guest visitor for a few weeks while attending the meetings related to his residency. At the end of his stay – he said, “I wish my parents had not poisoned me against Blacks, Muslims, Christians, and Jews; everything I have heard from them turned out to be false.” He continued, “I have lived in dorms with others, and now with you, my parents were plain wrong.”He agreed, when you are biased towards others, it affects your work performance. Your relationship with fellow workers will not be cordial as you were prejudiced against them. You keep a reserve with your fellow workers, and subconsciously, you don’t trust and share everything with them. That attitude reduces your contribution to your work, and you will not be able to serve your employer with full integrity. And when you go home, you are not giving 100% to your family either, and you are obsessed with your hatred towards the other.
- Add to employee records – Ask your existing employees and all future hires to vow for their impartiality in the use of social media platforms.
You cannot go wrong if you and your employees follow Lincoln’s wisdom, “With malice towards none.” Justice and fairness will sustain the system and pave the way for moving forward instead of fighting the side battles.
Like all other social media giants, Facebook has an interest in operating in nations where there is the rule of law, cohesive functioning of society, security, and the ability to sustain and grow.
We at the Center believe that such considerations and practices in the process of hiring can be a great asset for social media platforms as they are for other companies and corporations. Fair-minded employees can uplift and contribute to the growth of their respective organizations in unbelievable and in a lot more faster ways.
Views expressed by contributors in the opinion pieces are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Views and News magazine.
