You’re Fat! You’re Fired!
Companies are now paying bonuses to employees who lose weight.
Get rewarded with bonuses, at work, if you diet?
Be penalized if your remain fat? (No bonus for the “fatties”!)
Are companies getting too involved in what we do in our personal life? What we do to our bodies? Can they do that? Should they do that?
Does being fat, affect your work performance?
Is a fat person less capable of doing a good job, than a thinner one?
Some companies won’t hire individuals if they smoke. What? You say… Here’s an excerpt from Center for American Progress
Corporations around the world have been encouraging smoke-free workplaces by placing limits on how often and where employees can use tobacco during working hours. However, it seems that some corporations want to move beyond smoke-free workplaces to entirely smoke-free workforces. In January 2006, Weyco, Inc=, a medical-benefits administration company, began random tobacco breathalyzer tests to determine whether employees have been smoking on or off the job. Employees who failed the test were fined $50 if not enrolled in a smoking cessation program. Four employees who opted out of the test were fired. Scotts Miracle-Gro Company has declared that it will begin firing smokers in October 2006. The railroad company Union Pacific has also stopped hiring workers in those states where it is legal to do so
Will companies stop hiring individuals, because they’re over weight?
Search online, and you can read how employers want healthy employees, thus decreasing their costs, and improving their productivity. It’s claimed that healthy employees also have less absenteeism. It all relates to that, all important, “bottom line” i.e…… profit!
If companies can legally hire non smokers only, will it soon be that employers can discriminate against over weight applicants, also?
Not the same, you say.
Read my article, named: Should Smokers Pay A Higher Insurance Premium? You’ll be amazed at the results of my study.
It could happen.
But, should it?
Think about this….
Some employers can eliminate potential employees based on the results of:
1) A pre-employment drug test.
2) A poor driving record
3) The result of a security screening
4) A pre-employment physical
5) If they are a smoker
Will number 6, be….
If you are over weight?
What do you think?
Leave a comment, and share your thoughts.
Barbara September 20th, 2007 at 12:49 am
Asako,
Thank you for your input.
In my eyes, discrimination of any kind is wrong, but it happens all the time. How we can change that, I don’t have the answer.
Obesity…I don’t think anyone would “choose” to be obese, but for some, making poor food choices, and inactivity, can result in obesity.
Do some employers discriminate against overweight people? Yes, I think it happens more often than we know.
What I see as unfortunate, is that as more employers set their standards to exclude certain “groups” of people, they are also decreasing the employee “pool”, which they can draw from.
There are many brilliant individuals who are smokers, are obese, have bad driving records, or may not be able to pass a company physical, who will be overlooked by some. Companies who don’t find these, as employment “issues”, end up with a much larger employee “pool”, and may end up with some fantastic employees.