The process of hiring is similar to an arranged marriage.
You first come to know each other either through a common friend, through an advertisement or as in the case these todays through an online portal. Next, you have a few meetings to see if you are both compatible – each thinks of their best qualities they can ‘sell’ the other. If all goes well, you meet the family and after a short time period, it is D-Day and you join your new family/office.
However, while the process is the same, where they both differ is that with advertising jobs there are rules (atleast globally) and companies must play fair. This means you can’t discriminate against people based on their age, looks, gender etc – what should matter is their experience and capability to add value to your team. While technically, you shouldn’t discriminate on those factors in a marriage either, that is a post for another day.
Yet, for some reason this is not the case. One only has to flip through the newspaper or through the several advertisements on job portals to notice that gender and age discrimination abound. From an ad for a Front Office Receptionist or flight attendant where only female candidates are wanted to ads for delivery executives where only boys will be considered. Why is this the case? Can a man not proficiently answer calls or serve your meal on the plane or is it that only boys can deliver food and girls can’t?
This discrimination is often taken one step further by airlines where the candidates must only be of a certain age – even for experienced crew (I could understand if the advertisement was for freshers) and in the case of Singapore airlines continue to remain the same weight as they were when they are hired – they are allowed to shift a kilo either way but any more and you must take forced vacation.
We don’t live in the colonial era. The British left India a long time ago, so why this discrimination and why must it permeate down to the very basic of jobs?
In the same breath that companies advertise about their great HR benefits such as paternity leave, in-house crèches and work-from home policies, they ask for candidates photos when applying and don’t even accept applications if you are a month older than the age cut-off. Even worse, some employers such as Jet Airways and Qatar expect you to have ‘unblemished’ skin and be unmarried.
Are older, healthier people not good employees? Do people that are married not require jobs? Or did you think you were on Shaadi.com advertising for a spouse?
It’s about time that Indian enterprises stop thinking they are in high school, grow up and realize that employee discrimination based on gender, age or appearance is if not illegal, downright unethical. We can’t even start talking about the glass ceiling for women in the workplace or equal pay for genders without addressing this core problem in my opinion.
Does your startup discriminate based on any of these factors? What’s the reason – I am genuinely curious!
Sudarsan Ravi
Awesomely written Perzen. Your writings bring a certain pleasure to the mind. I was advised at the time of start up to have a bunch of guys as my first team members. I have personally never believed in discrimination and am thankful I did not change my stance. More than satisfied with the balance we have as an organization and the blend of ideas in the team.
Anyways, keep writing and continue making us think!
Srinivasan Rao
One Word Awesome, Hitting the Nail Strong and Clear thought . So place its Openly done like Airline , In many place its practiced as a culture of Org..
Nishant Agrawal
I don’t see the problem in airlines trying to hire only good looking and young staff. I don’t think it’s discrimination. It’s business as usual.
Perzen Darukhanawalla
Thanks so much Sudarsan! I am so glad to note that you did not listen to the advice and hired a diversity of staff. I am of the belief that diversity brings many more new ideas and strengths into a team and thereby makes the team stronger. Though I don’t believe this a good example to note is that while some may say that a team of guys are better programmers it could also mean that you don’t have a ‘mother hen’ figure in your team to take care of you all when the mood is down 🙂
Perzen Darukhanawalla
Hi Nishant – the problem lies in the fact that your capability is being judged by how good you look and how old you are rather than how dedicated or hardworking you are.
For example, to counter your comment my response would be I don’t see a problem in having an older team member who perhaps does not belong to the super model category also serving me while I am in the air. These perceptions that airline crew must be young has just been perpetuated by airlines themselves as a younger crew is cheaper to train and employ rather than more experienced crew. Yes, they must be fit as their job demands them to be but being good looking and young has nothing to do with it, being married or unmarried has nothing to do with it even more.
*please do note I don’t have anything against Jet – they are in reality my favourite airline but I wish they would not promote such discriminatory behaviour
Perzen Darukhanawalla
Thanks Srinivasan – you got the gist of the article correctly! While many may argue that they would only like good looking women to serve them food up in the air, the main problem is not that airlines practice this but that they promote this sort of discrimination on a wide scale for other organisations as well.
Perzen Darukhanawalla
As a follow up to my post, I also wanted to add a very timely news article to further validate my views. Times of India reported today that Go Air has decided to only hire women as flight attendants instead of male crew – not because their customers want to see pretty ladies (as I will excuse all guys for thinking) BUT because hiring men = more weight on the plane given that men are heavier than women = higher cost of flying. This means that they are unable to compete with Indigo – who already practices this strategy in the name of branding their airline as being one from the 1950s where there were only women flight attendants as part of the mile high club. Here’s yet another giant leap for further sexual discrimination.
*P.S. it made me laugh that the story next to it reported about US’s struggle in making gay marriages legal and its success this week.