The broad provisions under Title VII specifically cover gender discrimination in the workplace. Gender discrimination in the workplace has the following manifestations:

• Sexual Harassment: Sexual harassment includes practices such as direct requests for sex. Creation of hostile environments for individuals of either sex is tantamount to sexual harassment. Sexual harassment includes harassment of the same sex. The term ‘hostile environment’ applies to harassment on the basis of race, national origin, age, disability, religion, and skin color.
• Discrimination toward Pregnancy: Pregnancy and child birth needs to be treated in a similar manner to temporary diseases and medical conditions.
• Same pay for same work.
• Equal treatment toward both sexes at the workplace.
• Standard policies fro male and female employees.
• Uniform procedures for males and females during all phases of employment relationship.

Gender discrimination in the workplace takes place in the following scenarios when:

• Advertisements for jobs deny a chance to women to apply for it.
• The employer fails to hire women having children. The same employer hires men who have children.
• Female candidates are told to resign post marriage. The same cannot be said with regards to male candidates.
• The employer provides benefits to the spouses of male employees. The employer refuses to do the same with female employees’ spouses.
• Professional, qualified and trained female candidates are denied jobs that belong to the so-called male domain. Such women are denied the opportunity for the demonstration of their abilities toward these particular jobs.
• The employer flatly refuses to hire and train female candidates. Jobs are only assigned to male candidates. Pregnant and married women or those women attaining childbearing age are denied promotion on gender basis.
• The employer drafts an exclusive policy stipulating compulsory retirement for women employees at a certain age, which is lower than the normal retirement age.

Gender discrimination is also known as sex discrimination. Title VII belonging to the Civil Rights Act covers the topic in detail. The Civil Rights Act that has revised also covers gender discrimination in the workplace. The Equal Pay Act drafted in 1963, too, renders it illegal for gender discrimination on the basis of salary and wages.

Now, how do you deal with such people and give them a self- realization that they need to handle their own problems? Well, there are some of the ways to handle bullies at work.

• Avoid getting emotional: Bullies always have fun in getting the other person emotional and love making manipulations with their minds. What you need to do is not get emotional, stay calm and think rationally to ease the situation.
• Perfect your work: Bullies will always try to find faults with you by finding a chance to do so. And the best way for them will be to find out mistakes in your work. So, what you got to do is perfect your work, leave no pot holes so as to let them make you fall in. This will boost your confidence, as well.
• Have a support network at hand: Don’t allow the bully to make a fool out of you in the work place. Instead try working on building strong friendships with colleagues and gather support for such times.
• Get the audacity: Have the air to tell your bully publicly that their behavior is quite inappropriate according to the atmosphere of the workplace. Have records for that purpose, which would support your speech.
• Don’t expect a change: Do not think your modesty and calmness would change things in the bully. You are unaware of their problem and their aim behind bullying you. You cannot control their willingness.
• Educate yourself: In the worst case scenarios, what you’d be in a position to do is to go through all you company policies and the rights of employees. If your bully seems to be violating them to heights, you need to make them teach the rules, as well.

Overcoming racial discrimination in the workplace is the most challenging task that individuals face in their career. The chances of African Americans experiencing racial discrimination in the workplace are quite high.

Employers in America belonging to all sizes and industries have a dismal track record when it comes to providing an environment that is free from racial discrimination. Nearly 27,411 cases have been filed with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. All charges are based on race. Nearly 82.5 percent of these cases have been filed by African-Americans.

Workplace individuals can discriminate with you in a number of ways. Some of the ways are extremely subtle. Individuals should know the signs of racial discrimination in the workplace. This enables individuals to tackle the menace in a more efficient way.

The following are the manifestations of racial discrimination in the workplace:

• Overlooking the individual for deserved promotions. The individual’s supervisor may fail to give a reason for the denial of a promotion. The supervisor may promote an individual who possesses lesser qualifications. It is common for all African-Americans to be denied such promotions.
• Assigning work that is easier in comparison with that assigned to white individuals. Supervisors may allocate work that the discriminated individual is overqualified to tackle. White employees who have little experience may be assigned tasks that are more challenging.
• Assigning difficult assignments than those assigned to white individuals. Your supervisor may unwilling to provide training. White individuals could be trained. Simpler assignments may be allocated to them. The discriminated individual could face punishment for dismal performance.
• Discriminated individuals would be required to undergo superfluous tests. White individuals are exempted from such tests.
• Individuals could be given low, degrading tasks, such as cleaning the bathroom. These menial tasks are not assigned to white individuals.
• Discriminated individuals could be excluded from crucial meetings.
• Some supervisors may ignore your suggestions, solutions, and questions.
• Your supervisor could monitor your movements in a more pronounced manner.
• Individuals may be called insulting names.
• Individuals may be the subject of racial jokes and comments.
• Individuals could be asked questions that are racist in nature.

Other names given to this phenomenon would include intimidating work environment, abusive work environment, hostile workplace, or offensive work environment. The bully at your workplace could be an employee (bad boss or a co-worker) or it could be a non-employee (independent contractor or client).

The identity of the workplace bully isn’t the most important point when it comes to the legal aspects of the concept. What matters is that he/she is creating an abusive, offensive, intimidating or hostile environment at work, by indulging in discriminatory harassment at the workplace.

Laws for Hostile Work Environment:

There are no so-called ‘hostile work environment laws’. Attempting to or creating a hostile workplace at the workplace is, in reality, prohibited under the laws of Federal discrimination.

If the hostility is to be considered illegal according to the court of law, the hostile workplace must be a cause of discriminatory practices based on color, race, religion, disability, national origin, age, genetics or sex. It could also be caused by retaliation in the case of the violation of a discrimination law.

In addition to this, the harassment should be severe, recurring, pervasive and most importantly, intentional. It should interfere with the ability of the person to perform at his/her job.

The last and important point would be that the victim of this sort of behavior should believe that they do not have any other choice but to continue enduring the hostile workplace if they want to keep their jobs.

So how should you deal with going from taking orders to being the one belting them out? How should you get the team to actually work with you and respect the fact that you’re now in charge. Keep these rules in mind; and it might actually work out very well for you.

Listen:

The best way to implement a ‘listening’ habit would be to have an ‘open door policy’ which means that your team members could come and speak to you at any given point in time. It may be pretty helpful, in fact, if you could actually be open to some sort of feedback or the other. In case, you are busy, you could tell them so, politely.

If the team is having problems, say, with a deadline or some sort of office infrastructure, they can come and communicate with you freely. After all, them having known you as a team member before stepping into the shoes of the boss could turn out to be an advantage if used appropriately.

Divide and rule is a no-no:

Who are you trying to kid? Did you ever like bosses who played on the whole idea of ‘divide and rule’? When you didn’t like such bosses, why would you even want to become like one of them? The best thing to do would be to encourage healthy competition.  Your job would be to promote some sort of unity among all team members and actually encourage them to work as a team. Punish the ones who indulge in mindless gossiping and backbiting; because this tends to create rifts among team members.

Just because you’re praising one team member doesn’t mean that you have to pull another one down. Identify the strengths of every individual team member and play on these strengths.

Incentives generally work:

In most cases today, people are looking for a little more than just mere work satisfaction. You could set up challenges for your team members, who could win a reward if they performed the best. The prizes/rewards don’t need to be anything exotic. Movie tickets or a paid-for meal at a classy restaurant should do the trick. The idea is to motivate them to do better.

The credit isn’t yours to keep:

When you finally sit in the boss’ chair, you’ll realize how easy (and tempting) it is to take credit for all the hard work that your team has put in. Do not ever do this.  Once a target has been completed (especially the ones done in time), send out a mail and make mention of the names that have been instrumental in this project and thanks the others as well. Make sure that you mark your seniors on this mail.

Rules apply to you as well:

If you expect your team to be at work before 10 am, then make sure that you’re there by 9:45 am yourself. Live by example; and this will be the best way to ensure that they follow suit.

The truth of the matter is that sexual harassment is not something to be laughed about; by no means! If you think that you’ve had to deal with sexual innuendos being made while you’re at work; or you’ve found yourself at the receiving end of crass sexist jokes while at work, you’d know what we’re talking about.

Well, we aren’t suggesting you form your own Powerpuff bandwagon and get onto the case of that male chauvinistic boss. That might just cost you your job; and that wouldn’t be so pretty now, would it? But if you are putting up with sexual harassment at your workplace; here are some things to remember.

Be aware of what sexual harassment really is.

In most cases, we get so used to men sleazily passing by, while they brush against our bodies. We also get used to ignoring those ogling eyeballs which could be falling off their sockets when we wear that new skirt that fits oh-so-well. Railway stations, bus stations and almost every corner of the world, you might have already dealt with some sort of a weirdo or the other who has made a pass at you. While a pepper spray should be able to help in the case of the men you meet in the outside world, when it comes to your workplace, it may be a different story. Don’t turn a blind eye or stay silent about the incidence of sexual harassment at your workplace.

Sexual harassment would include any of the following:

• Sexually colored remarks
• Sexual demands, which may manifest themselves in the form of actions or words
• Overt physical contact or advances
• Showing of pornography

Do not encourage the culprit in question.

If you do brush off a comment or two by one of your male colleagues; you might think of it as a way to keep the issue at bay. But little do you know that turning a blind eye to it might actually work as encouragement for the deranged man. Ensure that you do not, in any way, encourage people who make any sort of advances at you.

For instance, if you notice him cracking a sexist or a sexual joke, do not burst out into giggles like Miss. Little Thirteen. Instead stand your ground and tell him firmly that you do not appreciate sexist humor and that it’d be better if he didn’t crack such jokes around you.  If he is the types who manages to menacingly stand over your shoulder every time you and he have to discuss business, you could firmly tell him to stand a little further since he’s crowding you.

The idea is to be a little firm, yet polite. Do not show him that you’re taking him head on. The key is to be non-confrontational.

Confide in an aide.

Talk to someone in your office about the whole deal. It is important that a colleague or your team head knows about the situation you’re dealing with. This way they’d be able to help you build up your case, in case you do decide to turn him into the authorities and file a report against him.

It would be advisable to talk to only one person. Getting too many people involved might put you at a risk of letting news leak out; and what seems like a serious problem to you might soon be feeding the mills of the gossip monger; and at the end of the day, you’ll be labeled ‘drama queen’ after people begin to believe that you pulled off this stunt just to get the extra mileage.

Build up a case that has a lot of substance to it.

Ensure that you do not let any of his sexual advances go unnoticed. Keep a tab on everything. Save those emails and SMSes for a later time. You could use it as evidence to build up your case, if you do have to report him to the authorities. Moreover, you could make a note in a diary and keep note of the comments (sexual) that he passed at you. You could try to include dates and places so that it makes things seem more realistic; and this way you might actually be able to rope in some witnesses.

If you do decide to pull the rope on that report you were longing to file against him since a long time now, ensure that you reason with the authorities in a calm manner. Breaking down into tears will not do you any good. In case the authorities do arrange for a confrontational session, do not back out of it or keep mum during the session. Ruffle a few feathers if you have to.

If we turned you off with the word ‘gossip’; too bad for you! You have no clue as to what you’re missing out on!

If you do change your mind; then these are some of the stories that you might hear at the water cooler and how they’ll affect your life.

The Gossip:

The Company just shut down their sales office in Manhattan.

The Implication:

Who cares about sales? I work in the Human Resources team.

Wake up and smell the sunshine. Your company just shut down an entire department; which would mean that they can’t, any longer, afford to pay the staff and keep that place running. This would mean that they aren’t doing as well as you thought they were.

How does that affect you? They’ll soon begin layoffs or cut down on appraisals.

Your Career Move:

Start pulling up your socks. Make sure you become indispensable. Prove your worth by taking up additional tasks and if nothing works out, start job hunting.

The Gossip:

The MD of the company is earning $ xx xx xx xxx every month.

The Implication:

If the company can afford to pay an obscene amount like that to the MD, and not to forget the innumerable perks that go with it, they can’t be as down-in-the-dumps as they claim to be. They can definitely afford to pay more than the crummy salary you’re at right now. After all, the amount you’re being paid is like pocket change for him.

Your Career Move:

At the next appraisal, try and make sure you can tell them why exactly you are expecting a salary hike. You have to be clear about the reason; and the MD’s salary isn’t a point you can use. So think of a good number of reasons (around 7 – 10) about why you deserve this raise. If you don’t get the raise that you were aiming for in the first place, then it might be a good idea to leave the company.

We say this because if the company can’t pay you when they’re doing well, how can you expect them to pay you if they do hit a rough spot eventually?

A Hypothetical scenario -

It’s ‘D’ day. Your performance is going to be reviewed. You’re pretty confident that all will go well. After all, your boss has been impressed by your consistent performances. All this, however, backfires when you’re rated badly. Your performance doesn’t get appreciated. Paradoxically, you are at the receiving end for all those mistakes that you considered ‘minor’.

There’s nothing you can do or say to get out of such a situation. It’s just one of those things that you have to learn to deal with. You can’t bypass your way out of this one, no matter how hard you wish you could.

What makes things worse is that you’re going to be under the scanner in most of the next meetings and reviews. They’re going to keep a hawk’s eye on you.

Sounds familiar? If you’ve felt the heat of a bad appraisal any time in your life, you’d be able to relate to the situation above. Learning how to deal with a bad appraisal is important. Take these tips seriously, and we hope it’ll ease the pain felt, along with helping you to avoid such a situation from reoccurring.

Keep your emotions in check -

It’s easy for the toughest of us to break down when you’re being ‘judged’ bu your superiors at work. Being in that position, is, in itself really tough. This is apart from the fact that you may be getting a bad review. That just makes things worse. The first thing that has to be kept in mind is that it will take a great deal of level headed-ness on your end. Self-control is the keyword here. Don’t let your emotions show up on your face, it will make you look extremely vulnerable and incapable of dealing with situations.

The key, then, lies in looking beyond the present context that you’re in. Listen and absorb the criticism that is coming your way. Apply your head and your heart to the task at hand, and make sure that the same mistakes do not happen again. This way, you’ll avoid the chances of having a bad appraisal the next time.

Ask for advice

You could try having a word with your immediate superiors. Ask him/her about how you could improve your performance. Keep asking them questions about how they can help you perform better and give your optimum. It is important, however, than you don’t pester them. You wouldn’t want them giving you a bad rating either. That will end up doing more harm than good.

Set your mind on the finish line

Your finish line is the day of the next appraisal. Make sure that you bring in the necessary changes that are expected on you. Improvise your working style. Check for issues that may be pulling you down. Once you’ve identified your problem areas, start working on them. Learning how to deal with a bad appraisal will help you better your performance, so that you never have to be in the same shoes again. Keep these tips in mind, work your way up, and we’re sure you’ll do fine.

None of us (read: none of us) can afford to have a bad haircut. Until your hair grows back, you pretty much have ZERO social life. On the other hand, however, a good hair day can make you feel super-good about yourself.

Give this matter a thought! Who made Richard Gere look bad? A hairdresser somewhere in the small town where Julia Roberts lived. Who makes you feel great by giving you a great haircut? Your hairdresser!!! From this you can draw a simple conclusion – A hairdresser can either make or break your will to live!

Making a career out of it? Really?

No sarcasm involved in this one. We say – go for it; but only if you have the prerequisites.

• Creativity
• Imagination
• An eye for fashion
• Ability to think on your feet
• Patience
• A steady hand

You think you’ve got all of these, then don’t waste any other second mulling over a career in Human Resources or Finance. Hairdressing may just be the thing for you!

STEPS TO BECOMING A HAIRDRESSER -

If you are still in high school, you could check and see if the school that you’re already going to has a vocational school that they work with. There are colleges for hairdressers and beauticians that allow them to spend part of their day doing normal school work, while they devote the other (major) chunk of their day to hairdressing. The biggest pro here is that, if you work on this course during your junior and senior year, you might be able to get into the industry right away!

The Ups

You get to play with people’s hair all day long. Scissors and blow-dryers will be your new best friends. You are responsible for the way a person looks. You can make him/her look great and take all the credit for having saved someone’s social life. If a client likes the haircut or hair-color that you used, chances are that he/she will bring back friends the next time. Word-of-mouth is the best publicity that there is in the industry. On slow days, you needn’t be worried about how you’d spend your day. There’d be enough gossip to keep you busy. Plus, if you need anything to think about, think about all the tips that happy customers may leave for you!

The Downs

You got to be up and standing on your feet the whole day. Clipping, styling and coloring can take a toll on your back, arms and feet. A good massage at the end of the day can do wonders!

Bearing the brunt

When you give a good haircut, you want all the credit for the person’s new looks. In some cases, however, you wish that you didn’t exist. In the rare case of you giving a bad haircut to your client, you will wish and pray that the trail never leads back to you. But somehow, it always does. Bad news always spreads faster than good news – the cardinal principle of life!

Your salary will depend on what salon you join. Brand value does make a difference, you see! Plus, the tips are an add on. If you manage to keep the super-rich client happy, you’ll be happy too.

Expenses in Educational Savings Account

The IRS Publication 970 has a rule which says that there are certain rules which must be applied like “attendance and enrollment at an eligible post secondary school”. If a student is qualified to meet the basic requirements then only he/she can apply for Education savings account. The expenses include tuition fees and other requirement expenses like books, and other supplies. Student’s room and board expenses will also be covered for at least on half time basis.

Contributions in Educational Savings Account

The amounts you deposit in educational savings account are not tax-deductible as compare to IRS. You can also transfer this account into tax free basis. If you want to make any contributions to transfer into IRS, there are three conditions for that the first one is that only cash will be accepted as the method of your payment. They won’t allow any other forms of payments. If you are planning to make annual payment than it should be made by the due date of you federal income tax return. Third is your beneficiary should be “special needs beneficiary” you payments should be made to the person who reaches 18 years of age.

There is a limit on the amount of your contribution that you save for yourself in your account or you save for your beneficiary as stated by IRS. The limit for the beneficiary was fixed as $2000 in the year 2008. It is very necessary to understand the rules of contribution as declared by IRS or you will be charged for “excessive contributions” excise tax on your beneficiary. From the year 2008 the contribution tax is cited by IRS is 6 percent. If you have more than one educational savings account than you have to maintain the limit of $2000 per beneficiary in all your accounts.

Barred Expenses in Educational Savings Account

There are assured educational expenses which are barred under any educational savings account. Medical expenses, transportation expenses, health fees, and living expense (alone or with family) all these are barred educational expenses. If you are planning to pay these expenses at the time of enrollment then also they will be treaded as disqualified educational expenses.

Qualified Educational Institution is compulsory

If you want to open educational savings account then you place of learning or institution should be “Eligible Education institution” as per the rules of IRS Publication 970. Your place of learning should be any university, college, vocational school, or any post secondary educational institute and which should be approved by United States Department of Education. You place of learning and institution should be profit oriented and privately owned institution. It can also be secondary, public, elementary, or any other non profit entity. You need to inquire about the type of institution to get the benefits of  “A penny saved is a Dollar Earned” in Educational Saving Account.