The Company’s Defense

If you are being discriminated or treated differently at work because of your race, gender, age, disability or some other reason, you have certain options available to you.  You might consider the situation too oppressive to continue to work at the company, you might decide to file an EEOC charge or you might decide to file a complaint with HR. You might notice this adverse treatment even if you have not raised the discrimination issue yet.With options 2 and 3, you must think through what the company’s next step will be.  First, a good HR person will document the discussion and soon legal counsel will become involved, first to ascertain the strength of your complaints and next, to develop the company’s defense.  If your complaint is that you were denied a promotion or some other benefit because of your age, race, gender, or disability, the company’s defense is that you were denied that benefit because you weren’t qualified for the position or that your performance was deficient in some other way so as to justify not giving the job to you.You might notice that you are being written up for things others are not, being excluded from meetings, being criticized in public or treated disrespectfully.  You should also expect that your past performance will be scrutinized together with your emails and your computer activity. If you notice an increase in this treatment after you have filed your complaint, you must document this with HR as it is the grounds for a retaliation complaint.  Often, this part of the complaint is stronger than the initial discrimination charge.If any of this sounds familiar, it would be a good time to find an attorney.