Best Buy Not Likely to Deliver On Settlement Promises

Although Best Buy recently settled a class-action lawsuit, what the company hopes to achieve in the next few years is not likely to be possible.

Class actions lawsuits against employers are not uncommon.  Best Buy workers sued the company due to the company’s practice of denying jobs and promotions to African Americans, Latinos, and women.

Best Buy has spent the past four years implementing “affirmative relief addressing the hiring, assignment, promotion, and exempt compensation claims.”  Basically Best Buy wants to improve diversity by ensuring that more African Americans, Latinos and women will be hired as a part of the Best Buy team.  “Someone” will be in charge of making sure this happens.

On the one hand it is good that major corporations are striving to promote diversity in management, non-discrimination, and anti-harassment measures.  However it is also important to implement effective procedures to do so.  Thus far, Best Buy has failed to implement effectual measures.

For example, the article states that “someone” will be in charge of ensuring the company’s team is more diverse.  Best Buy is a huge corporation with many locations.  More than one person would be needed to ensure diversity.  Perhaps the creation of an “internal affairs” team where individuals would ensure that the staff is diverse and that there is no discrimination or harassment going on would be a better solution.  Creation of such a team would increase employment, ensure affectivity, and legitimize Best Buy’s efforts to hinder any further lawsuits.

Also, displaying anti-harassment, anti-discrimination and anti-retaliation policies on an internal company website is fine for legal purposes because Best Buy’s efforts are legitimized.  However, an effective solution would be to have workshops, either monthly or once every six months, for employees regarding these issues.  The workshops could serve to educate employees on the consequences of such unprofessional conduct and the overall harm such conduct brings about for everyone.

Solutions such as these would achieve the goal that Best Buy is working towards.  It can be argued that such ideas may be in the works, and that Best Buy has not verbalized these plans.  That may well be.  However given that they just settled a class-action suit and are looking to create a more public-friendly image, verbalizing such ideas would have been a top strategy.

It is likely that the company has not thought of such solutions, does not want to implement such long-term procedures, or is just looking to fool the public into thinking they are changing their ways, when in fact they do not plan to.  Either way, future trips to Best Buy should be interesting.  I will definitely be looking out to see how much more diversity the company has brought in, as well as any other procedures implemented to achieve Best Buy’s goals.