I wouldn’t immediately jump to conclusions on how I felt about a company if they were charged with a discrimination lawsuit. I would first look into the type of discrimination suit the company was being charged and read up on the allegations. Especially with larger companies, I would want to understand if the suit was being brought on by a single individual or multiple parties. I feel like this would help show whether discrimination is a systemic issue, or if it was isolated to a certain manager or group at the company.
If this was a recurring behavior or a lawsuit that involved many parties at the company, it would definitely change how I viewed that company as to me, that would show it is a systemic issue rather than one bad apple. If this was a first-time issue, or specific to one individual, I would want to look further into the claims against the company and follow the lawsuit to see the end result as this may have been a case of a single bad manager.
I also think that how a company responds to a lawsuit can say a lot about the company as well. If they stay silent and tend to ‘hide’, this would make me wary about how they deal with issues. Guilty or not, I think it shows professionalism when a company releases a statement of some kind acknowledging that they are involved in a lawsuit and what they are/aren’t doing in regards to it.
In our personal lives as well as in business, I think reputation is extremely important and I want to work for companies that have similar values as I do and if a company had a discriminatory reputation, that is not somewhere I would want to work.
Kayla,
I really like your view on the issue. My personal philosophy is that I would not support a company or work for a company that I didn’t support what they did from an ethical standpoint. I think you said it very well by saying that you would not jump to conclusion. In this day in age there are a lot of lawsuits some are legit and well worth fighting and then there are stupid lawsuits that are a waste of government resources and time. That is a great point though that I didn’t think about though is if it is a recurring lawsuit. How many times the company has been to court or is it a one time deal? Another point that you brought up that I really like is how does the company respond, do they start pointing fingers or do they look at company policies to prevent future incidents. Well done on your post!