Equality Framework

Your equality policy should:

• have the support of everyone in the organisation

• be part of the business strategy

• be developed in consultation with employees and their representatives

• have commitment from the very top of the organisation

• be promoted widely and circulated to all employees and job applicants.

You should then identify the areas of discrimination that you will counter, usually:

● age

● disability

● gender reassignment

● marriage and civil partnership

● pregnancy and maternity

●race (including ethnic origin, colour, nationality and national origin)

● religion or belief (including philosophical belief)

● sex

● sexual orientation.

Your equality training programme should provide:

• an explanation of your approach to equality and why it is important

• the business case for equality

• the law and what this means in practice

• the roles and responsibilities of staff in making the policy work

• your policy for dealing with bullying and harassment

• written materials to reinforce the training

• specialist guidance for staff who recruit, select, appraise etc

• the chance for staff to raise their concerns

Key equality issues

Fairness at work should apply to an employee throughout their working life: from recruitment and selection right through to retirement. When you come to monitor how well your equality policy is working in practice you will need to ask questions about these issues.

For example, who:

● have you recruited?

● have you trained?

● have you promoted?

● is making grievances?

● is leaving?

● is absent?

Monitoring:

What is monitoring and why should I do it? The purpose of monitoring is to enable you to examine how your policy and action plan are working. If they are not working well you need to ask yourself ‘why?’ and do something to put it right.

Monitoring involves:

1. Gathering individual personal information on the diversity of your

potential recruits or existing employees.

2. Comparing and analysing this against:

• other groups of employees in your company

• job-seekers in your local community

• the broader national labour market

Preparation is the key to effective monitoring. You need to:

• Explain to staff why you are monitoring

• Decide on the best way to communicate your message – eg magazine articles, intranet site

• Provide a point of contact if employees have concerns

• Select a senior manager or member of staff to champion the monitoring process

• Encourage external recruits to complete the monitoring form

• Reassure staff that all information collected will remain strictly confidential.

What action should I take?

If you find that your organisation is not representative or it appears that sections of your workforce are not progressing within the company, do not impose rapid, false solutions. Keep in mind that equality is always about finding the most suitable person for the job.

Take action:

• Encourage more people to apply for posts by considering job-sharing and part-time working

• Advertise widely to attract a diverse workforce

• Publish recruitment results internally where appropriate – it will help promote transparency

• Maintain confidentiality – individuals should not be identified

• Offer work experience opportunities or mentoring for students

• Work with community groups and arrange local sponsorships

• Consider ‘Positive Action’.

In you want to find out more on this topic and how we can help your organisation comply to the equality and Human right framework, please get in touch with us on 01163669989.