Have you ever been discriminated on the workplace?

“Discrimination is the practice of treating one person or group differently from another in an unfair way.” (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English)

Nowadays we are living in a multicultural society where everyone is or at least should be treated equally. However too often we witness unequal treatment in our everyday life and sometimes even become victims of it. When this unequal treatment is done in an unfair way, then we speak about discrimination. Almost everyone has been discriminated against in their life. That is simply because there are so many types of discrimination as all people are part of a particular group- ethnic, gender, social group etc. Being discriminated against affects one's mentality and makes them feel they do not fit in a particular place or position just because they are different in some way.

One of the most common places, where discrimination takes part, is the workplace. A whole variety of conflicts arise on the workplace which predispose people in using unfair methods like discrimination. The most common type of discrimination on the workplace is ethnicity and gender discrimination. Many women are not allowed to reach managerial levels in their jobs because of stereotyping. The equality between the two genders is an issue of concern since very long time. The conflict arises from the fact that men and women are not treated in the same way for the same behaviours. This leads to lack of satisfaction and desire for change in one of the parties taking part in the conflict (the female party) which on the other hand will affect the interests of the other party (the male one).

On the other hand, the ethnic discrimination is an issue with no less importance. Many intelligent and well-educated people are not given the chance to have a good and well-paid job or develop in their career just because of the ethnic group they belong to. For example, there is a long-standing conflict between two Balkan countries- Macedonia and Bulgaria. As a result of this conflict, people who determine themselves as Bulgarians and hold Bulgarian passports are discriminated against from the Macedonian government and are kicked out from their jobs, bullied, ans simply are not allowed to have a normal life.

The discrimination on the workplace causes a serious conflict which could be between managers and employees or team members or leaders. These conflicts cause serious problems which need to be pointed out and discussed on time because otherwise they affect the overall company performance.