I believe the most important lesson that I learned in this class was in week 2 when we were talking about legal, ethical, and professional concerns. Specifically I think that the topic of discrimination in the workplace is the most valuable lesson and the one that gasped me the most.

Discrimination in the workplace in my opinion is one of the most important factors to consider when hiring someone, as well as during ones tenure at a company. Discrimination can come in many forms such as, racial, sexism, ageism, nepotism, and more. When hiring someone, these are all factors that should never come into play as the deciding factor or even a requirement for employment. One thing that people actually don’t know about is that there is a such thing as legal discrimination. There are other forms of discrimination that aren’t as apparent that is typically passed off for being normal. For instance, legal discrimination can occur if it is absolutely essential to the job, just like if you are interviewing to be a Spanish interpreter, you need to be able to speak Spanish there for you can “discriminate” assuming someone doesn’t speak Spanish. A common occurrence that happens is actually something that is the exact opposite. An example is if you are applying to be a chef at a Spanish restaurant, and the entire staff only speaks Spanish. The managers decide to not hire you since you don’t speak Spanish and it might make things more difficult for the rest of the team. This is not something essential to the job of being a chef, therefore this would be considered to be discrimination.

Discrimination is a terrible thing that happens occasionally in the workplace but luckily is happening less and less as time goes on and employers are more aware. I think it is a good thing for all managers to be aware of and can help make one a more effective manager, as well as having a positive influence on ones team.