How to Respond to Workplace Discrimination
Within the wide realm of negative workplace situations, workplace discrimination is a common complaint. It's easy to see favoritism within your office: a younger colleague gets preferential treatment, the boss has a crush on the receptionist, demographic biases inhibit your promotions, etc. There are as many flavors of workplace discrimination as there are at Baskin Robbins, but most of them are in some ways the same, and can be handled with some attention to strategy. Don't let workplace discrimination get the best of you, use your head to respond wisely.
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Instructions
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Avoid storming in. Stay professional and use business-type interactions to affect change. Don't be tempted to run into the office to blurt out the obvious. Everybody probably already knows, and the workplace is not a hall of justice. You'll get further using diplomacy and professional negotiation to change your situation.
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Stay dedicated until your departure. Don't use workplace discrimination as a reason to start slacking; this garden path will make you a victim of the very thing you're trying to triumph over. Responding to workplace discrimination involves finding the best in you to meet a challenge.
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Establish a pattern. If possible, document evidence of workplace discrimination. Specifics include: untimely promotions, cute and fuzzy interactions between a boss and a favorite, or unprecedented delegation of company tasks. A capricious gift of company resources (car, etc.) is also good evidence that something is up.
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Talk to uninvolved people. You could have a frank discussion with the boss, but is he/she is already playing favorites, the direct approach is likely to be unfruitful. Find avenues of expressing your concerns to people empowered to deal with your issues, and inclined to lend you a sympathetic ear.
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Go your own way. Use workplace discrimination to bump you away from captivity and toward your own goals, whether as a freelance independent contractor or small business owner. Some disgruntled employees even play hardball, setting up their own company against their old employer. In some cases, this is strangely easy, due to low overhead and new marketing technology. Think about how you want to make yourself heard on the local scene or in the wider industry.
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