If you asked managers at your company to name types of employment discrimination, they might answer age, gender, racial or disability. What they might not guess is the fourth-largest type of discrimination, according to a new survey.
In the entire history of employer-employee relationships, managers have come up with an infinite number of bad reasons not to hire qualified workers.
Imagine this scenario: Joe and Mark have both applied at your company to fill an open supervisor’s position. The department manager has taken their individual qualities into account.
Joe appears to be the better choice between two good applicants. However, the department manager wants to promote Mark instead.
As an HR rep, you ask the manager why he had decided to go with Mark. The manager replies, “Well, Joe has more years experience, a better knowledge base and his performance numbers are better. But I don’t think his appearance would make as good an impression on customers as Mark’s would.”
Unlikely? It happens more than you might expect.
A Yale University survey found 5% of men and 10% of women said they faced discrimination because of their weight, ranging from job refusals to rude treatment.
You can be sued
It’s worse for those considered severely obese: 40% reported instances of weight discrimination.
Among all adults, weight discrimination ranks fourth among all types after gender, age and racial. For women, it ranks third behind gender and age.
Federal law offers no legal protection to people who are slightly overweight, obese or severely obese.
However, that hasn’t stopped some courts from ruling that workers have faced discrimination because of their weight.
The problem becomes more complicated because of instances where weight has been recognized as a legitimate workplace disability. Consider the case of Bonnie Cook.
In 1993, a federal court ruled Cook was discriminated against because of her weight. At five-foot-two and 320 pounds, Cook qualified as severely obese. She wasn’t hired by a state-run facility for people who are mentally challenged because she might not be able to help them evacuate in an emergency and that her weight put her at greater risk of developing serious ailments.
Cook sued. The state argued her obesity wasn’t a disability because she could lose the weight. The court dismissed that reasoning, saying the metabolic dysfunction that can result in obesity can remain even after a person has lost weight.
So if an employer treats an obese person as disabled or if the applicant/worker believes the company is treating her as if she’s disabled, that person may fall under the protection of the Americans with Disabilities Act or a state’s fair employment law.
What can you do to make sure managers aren’t setting up your company for a potential lawsuit for discriminating against someone who is overweight? The best bet is education for your managers. Emphasize that their job is to look for the best people for jobs without regard to gender, age, race, and, yes weight.
We’d like to hear what you have to say about this issue.
