Equality and diversity

1. EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY

2. Introduction to Equality and Diversity Law
All workplaces have a responsibility to promote equality and diversity. Not only is
it ethical for your company to encourage equal opportunity, but it's also a legal
requirement, and all businesses must ensure that discrimination is prevented.
Promoting equality and diversity means that your workplace can be a place free
from discrimination, harassment victimization and bullying a place where people
feel happy and comfortable being themselves. It means that everyone you work
with has the same opportunities, regardless of their skin colour, religion, age,
disability, sexual orientation or gender.
This Equality and Diversity training course will help you to recognise the role
that you play in encouraging tolerance and understanding in your workplace. The
course will explain what the law says, what is meant by discrimination,
harassment and victimisation and how you can improve your own attitude
towards equality and diversity,

3. The topics covered in this
section are:  The Equality Act 2010
 Who does the Equality Act apply to?
 Employer responsibilities.
 Preventing discrimination with an equality policy.
 Benefits of equality and diversity
 Equal pay - sex equality

4. THE EQUALITY ACT 2020
 The Equality Act has been in place since October 2010. Its aim is
to legally protect people from discrimination, both in the
workplace and in wider society, and it sets out the different ways
in which it's unlawful to treat someone.
 The Act encompasses a range of previous legislation, such as the
Sex Discrimination Act and the Race Relations Act, to provide a
single piece of legislation that promotes equal opportunities and
good relations between people.
 All workplaces must comply with the Equality Act by law. As an
employee this means treating everyone you work with fairly,
with dignity and with respect and not discriminating harassing or
bullying someone based on their personal characteristics.

5. Who does the equality act offers
to:
The nine protected characteristics are:
1. Age.
2. Disability.
3. Gender reassignment
4. Marriage and civil partnership.
5. Pregnancy and maternity.
6. Race.
7. Religion and belief.
8. Sex.
9. Sexual orientation.
The Equality Act offers protection from discrimination,
harassment and victimisation for nine specific personal
characteristics. These are known as protected
characteristics under the law.

6. Who does the equality act offers to
It's important to note that the Act protects more than just the people you currently work with. The law applies equally to:
Anyone with a contract of employment whether full-time or part-time.
Agency workers, people who are contracted to do work at your site and people who provide services to
your workplace.
Apprentices and people carrying out work experience, Self-employed people that do work for you.
Business partners.
Anyone applying for a job at your company

7. Employer Responsibilities
ACAS, the Advisory. Conciliation and Arbitration Service provides four key aims for all workplaces to help them comply with equality and
diversity law. Your employer has a responsibility to:
Encourage equality
For example, ensuring the job application process is fair. providing equal opportunities for promotions
and checking that company policies don't disadvantage certain groups of people
Minimise the risk of discrimination
For example, stating that discriminatory behaviour is not tolerated by the business and creating an
equality poly that prohibits discrimination, harassment, victimisation and bullying
Promote diversity
For example, hiring a wide range of people and valuing the differences between staff members.
Manage fairly
For example, allowing everyone to have the ability to request flexible working and ensuringfair
disciplinary and grievance procedure.

8. Preventing discrimination
with an equality policy.
An equality policy is a statement written by your company, usually included
in the employee handbook that explains how your business will avoid
discrimination and promote an inclusive workplace.
The policy usually contains statement declaring:
 Your company's commitment to equality.
 That your company will encourage value and manage diversity.
 The aim to attain a diverse workforce.
 That discrimination harassment victimisation and bullying will not be
tolerated by the company.
 That beaches of the policy are regarded as misconduct and so will be
handled in accordance with the company disciplinary and grievance
policy

9. Benefit of Equality and Diversity
Aside from compliance with the law. there are many reasons why encouraging equality and promoting diversity is
beneficial for you and your business. For example:
 Your workplace will more accurately reflect the UK's population and
have representation from different groups rather than being made
up of entirely one type of person. study by Deloitte found that 80%
of people in diverse teams view their work more positively.
 This wider representation means that your company will appeal to a
wider audience, so you'll attract a larger pool of job candidates.
 A workplace filled with different backgrounds leads to more
creativity, new solutions and different ways of thinking. A recent
Forbes study found that 56 of people agree that diversity helps
drive innovation.
 This acceptance of differences also ensures greater tolerance
between colleagues and a happier workforce which can lead to a
reduction in staff turnover.
 Everyone within your company will recognise that opportunities are
open to everyone, so people won't fear to apply for promotions
and will feel inspired and more
 In turn, this confident to achieve in turn, this confidence will help to
overturn any imbalances In your workplace and in society, such as
the number of women or people of colour in senior positions

10. Equal pay - sex equality
To encourage equality between the sexes, the Equality Act specifies that
your employer must ensure that men and women are treated equally for
the work that they do.
The Act states that men and women have the right to equality at work,
meaning that employees doing equal work must receive the same pay,
benefits and employment terms and conditions.
Your employer should regularly monitor and review both full: time and part-
time employment contracts to ensure that women are not being treated
less favorably than men.
As an employee, you have the right to compare your contract with others in
the same position if you feel you are not being pad or treated fairly.
you think you aren't receiving equal pay, then it's advised that you write to
your employer asking for further information on the reason for the
difference and try to come to an Informal agreement using your company's
grievance procedure,

11. THE NINE PROTECTED
CHARACTERISTICS

12. DISCRIMINATION, HARASSMENT AND
VICTIMISATION

13. Introduction
 The aim of the Equality Act is to give people
legal protection from discrimination,
harassment and victimisation based on the
nine protected characteristics.
 In In this part of the course, you'll learn
about the different types of discrimination -
direct associative, perceptive and indirect
plus what constitutes harassment sexual
harassment, victimisation, bullying,
stereotyping and prejudice.
 This will help you to recognise when these
unlawful behaviours are happening
understand how to avoid them and know
how to report the behaviour if you are
experiencing it yourself or witness it
happening to someone else

14. The topics covered in this
section are:
 What is discrimination?
 Direct discrimination
 Indirect discrimination
 Harassment
 Victimisation

15. What is Discrimination
The Equality Act makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person because they possess one or more of the nine protected
characteristics. This applies to all current and prospective employees, from the job advert through to the end of employment and
beyond. There are four main categories of discrimination:-
Direct
Discrimination
Indirect
Discrimination
Harassment Victimisation

16. Direct Discrimination
Direct discrimination is when a person is treated unfavorably or unlawfully
because of a protected characteristic they possess.in these cases, the
discriminatory behaviour is usually obvious, such as not employing a man
because of his race, refusing a promotion to someone because they are female
or not allowing someone to be in a customer-facing role because they are
disabled.
For example:
Henry is interviewing Debbie for the role of Marketing Team Leader. During the
interview. Henry learns that Debbie has recently converted to Islam and is
planning to take two weeks off for Ramadan and another two weeks to attend
the Haji pilgrimage next summer.
Despite her marketing knowledge and Experience, Henry decides to not hire
Debbie for the role because he doesn't want to employ someone who will keep
disappearing for holidays. This is direct discrimination against Debbie because
of her religion

17. Indirect Discrimination
Indirect discrimination is when an organisation's policies, practices and
procedures inadvertently put people with a certain protected characteristic at a
disadvantage.
Indirect discrimination is usually less obvious than direct discrimination. For
example, requiring all job applicants to have a British passport disadvantages
people from different races, or only offering a bonus to workers who have
taken no sick day's disadvantages people with a disability, who are pregnant or
who are undergoing gender reassignment.
For example:
A company runs a cycle-to-work scheme for its employees but only provides
standard road bikes for hire. Gabriella has Multiple Sclerosis and currently gets
the bus to work, then has a walking stick to get around the office. Gabriella
wants to sign up for the cycle to work scheme to improve her fitness but is
dismayed to find none of the bikes available for hire are suitable for her needs.
This is indirect discrimination against Gabriella's liability.

18. Harassment
Harassment is defined as ‘unwanted conduct’ relating to protected
characteristics that has the purpose of violating dignity of creating an
intimidating versatile degrading humiliating or offensive environment.
 Harassment is :
 Unwanted behaviour towards person known characteristics,
perceived characteristic or an associate characteristic for
example sending abusive message to a person because they
are transgender, are assumed to be transgender or have a
transgender partner would all be classed as harassment.
 Verbal, such as bullying, physical such as unwanted physical
contact or in writing such as inappropriate or persistent text
messages or mail.
 Based on victim's reception of the behaviour rather than
harassers. For example, the harasser may state that regularly
touching someone's arms is just what they do and its not
offensive, but the victim may feel that this is an inappropriate
behaviour and raise a grievance. It is the victim's opinion of
the behaviour that matters.
 Often referred to as banter' by the people carrying it out in an
attempt to play down the behaviour. For example, calling
someone offensive nicknames, making jokes gossiping.

19. Victimisation
The Equality Act also gives people legal protection from
victimisation. This is where someone suffers a detriment
because they have plan to, or are thought to have:
 Made an allegation of discrimination or harassment.
 Given evidence for a case of discrimination or
harassment.
 Supported someone else who has made an allegation
 Raised a grievance relating to equality and diversity.
Examples of a 'detriment include being purposefully ignored.
being denied opportunities or being made redundant.
For example:
Ju a 60-year-old employee, recently raised a formal grievance
with her boss after a promotion opportunity was hidden
from her because of her age. Ju's colleague, Sandra, provided
evidence of the discrimination. Lately, however, Sandra has
been ignored by her own manager and is no longer asked to
contribute to meetings as a result of her involvement with
ju's case. Sandra could claim victimisation in this situation.

20. Summary
 The Equality Act 2010 offers protection from discrimination, harassment and
victimisation for nine specific protected characteristics.
 Your employer can take positive action to help improve the diversity of your
workplace if certain protected characteristics are at a disadvantage or
underrepresented in your company.
 An equality policy is a statement written by your company, usually included in the
employee handbook that explains how your business will avoid discrimination and
promote an inclusive workplace.
 The Equality Act also requires your employer to address equal pay to ensure sex
equality and make reasonable adjustments to promote disability equality.
 Direct discrimination is when a person is treated unfavorably or unlawfully because
of a protected characteristic they possess because of a characteristic of someone
they are associated with or because of a characteristic it's assumed they possess
 Harassment is defined as unwanted conduct relating to a protected characteristic
that has the purpose of violating dignity or creating an intimidating hostile,
degrading humiliating or offensive environment.
 Indirect discrimination is when an organisation's policies, practices and procedures
inadvertently put people with a certain protected characteristic at a disadvantage.
 Victimisation is where someone suffers a detriment because they have, plan to, or
are thought to have made an allegation, given evidence, supported someone or
raised a grievance relating to equality and diversity