1. An Overview

Having a diverse staff also helps people come up with new ideas. Unlawful discrimination makes your business look bad. It can also cost you a lot if one of your workers wins an employment tribunal case against you for unlawful discrimination.
It is against the law to treat people differently because:
• sex, including pregnancy and maternity leave
• marital status, which includes position in a civil partnership
• changing your gender
• being disabled
• race
• age
• gender or sexuality
• faith or lack of faith in a church or belief
• whether or not they belong to a trade union
• whether you are a temporary or part-time worker
 

On the other hand, there may be times when subtle discrimination is okay. As an example, an employer might have a rule that is unfair to women or people who don't follow any religion, but that rule is necessary for the employer to reach a real goal. In that case, it might be okay to use subtle discrimination.
Fairness for your clients
you should know that the laws that protect equal rights also protect the people who buy from and use your services. It is against the law to refuse service or goods to people of different ages unless there are good reasons. For example, people of certain ages can get out of paying on holidays where you have to be a certain age, like ___ and 18-30. But in 2011, a ___ was fined for not serving a gay couple.
 

2. Different kinds of biases and when they can happen 

Anti-discrimination laws cover the following:
• applicants for jobs
• all private and state companies, those who offer vocational training, trade unions, professional groups, employer groups, and trustees and managers of occupational pension plans
• employees and other workers, such as temporary and agency workers, office holders, business partners, and others
• people hired by a business to do work, like contractors and people who work for themselves
Areas that are touched by the equality law are the following:
• hiring people
• the rules and terms
• promotion and moving on
• giving out training
• giving out benefits
• being fired
• pensions for workers
You can hire someone with a protected characteristic if they are just as good at the job as someone else and you have a good reason to believe that people with that characteristic:
• Don't have enough people in the field
• Go through a disadvantage because of that trait.
But you will:
• Only be able to take such good action if it is a fair way to deal with the disadvantage or underrepresentation
• not be able to pick a less qualified choice just because they have a protected trait that makes them less common or less favoured.
These are the protective traits that matter:
• age
• being disabled
• changing your gender
• marriage and joint legal status
• maternity leave and pregnancy
• nationality, race, ethnicity, or country of origin
• faith or lack of faith in a church or belief
• sex
• gender or sexuality

3. Job Openings

It's not only the law that you have to avoid discrimination during the hiring process. It's also the best way to find the right person for the job.
Remember that people who applied for a job could sue you in an employment panel if they think you illegally discriminated against them when you didn't hire them.
Putting up job ads

When writing job ads, you should be careful not to make it sound like a person's ability to get the job rests on them not having a disability. You shouldn't give the impression that you don't want to make sensible changes.
There are times when you can say that being a certain gender, race, faith or belief, age, or sexual orientation is a requirement for the job.
For instance, you could say that being from Italy is a must if you want to work as a waitress in an Italian restaurant so that the restaurant has a "authentic" Italian feel.
Some questions about health and disability

When you can ask about health or condition when hiring someone, the Equality Act says you can't. Before the following events happen, these rules apply:
• give anyone a job offer with or without conditions, or
• Put them in a pool of qualified people who will be offered a job when one opens up.
Before that, you should only ask about a candidate's health or condition if you need to know:
• They will be able to take some kind of test to be chosen.
• You will have to make a fair change to the test or interview for applicants who are disabled
• They will be able to do something that is essential to the job
You can also ask about health or disability, though, if:
• You want to keep an eye on how diverse your candidates are
• you want to do something to make it easier for you to hire more disabled people
• The job requires someone to have a certain disability, and you want to make sure that person has that disability.
Forms for applications
you should only ask for the most basic personal information, but you may need to ask for some information to make sure there is no bias in the hiring process. For instance, you could ask applicants to let you know if they need to make any extra arrangements in order to attend an interview or other selection process.
According to the Equality Act, you should take reasonable steps to find out if the applicant is disabled if their answer shows or hints that they are. If that's the case, you would be required by law to make reasonable changes, like having the interview in a room that's easy for people to get to or giving selection tests more time.
Anyone who is disabled and asks for an application form in an easy-to-read style should get one if it is possible for you to do so.
 

Having interviews
there are some things you shouldn't ask job candidates during interviews, like if they are married, in a same-sex civil union, or planning to have children. It's also not okay to ask too many questions about health or disabilities.
If a candidate tells you ahead of time that they have a disability, you should ask them if there are any acceptable changes you can make so they can come to the interview and participate.

You can only ask questions about health or disabilities that are connected to the job. For instance, you need to find out if job candidates can do the things that need to be done for the job. To be more inclusive of disabled people in the hiring process, you could increase the number of disabled workers you have.
Keeping records you should always be able to explain why you chose to hire a certain person. So, it's a good idea to keep as many records as possible during the hiring process. This will help you show proof to a job tribunal if someone says you discriminated against them illegally.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission website has more information about how employment law affects equality.
The GOI website also has information on how to hire people.

4. The same pay and terms

Men and women should get the same pay for the same work.
"Pay" can mean both pay or salary and the terms and conditions of a contract.
Even if men and women are paid the same amount for the same job, they may still not be paid the same because of other perks. For instance, if perks like company cars and private health care were different for men and women, their pay would not be equal.
Someone of a different gender may do different work than you, but both can be seen as of equal value if the work is similar or the same in terms of what needs to be done.
If an employee needs important information from you, they can either ask you directly or fill out a special questions form. You don't have to answer, but you can use the special answers form if you want to.
If you choose not to react, or give a vague answer, it could be used against you in an employment tribunal.
You might be able to explain pay differences if you can show that they had nothing to do with gender. One way to do this would be to pay more to workers who:
• Live in a place where the cost of living is high
• you want to keep because it will be hard to find someone else to do the job

5. Being treated badly because of your age, race, religion, or disability

Using age as a factor
Employers can't make workers quit just because they turned 60 years old anymore since the Default Retirement Age (DRA) was taken away. In most cases, it is against the law for companies to treat some people less well because of their age.
You should make sure that there are no biases in the way you hire people. For instance, if a company wouldn't hire people younger than 30 that would be direct discrimination. To get more people to read your ads, put them in publications that people of all ages read.
Also, make sure that the way you fire people is based on what the business needs, not their age. To give an example, it might be unfair to choose workers for layoffs based only on "last in, first out."
In certain situations, it is legal to treat people differently because of their age. Because, say, your business sells booze, you need people to be at least 18 years old.
But there are some cases, and discrimination that isn't fair can be fought. Also, an employee who has been wronged by a boss can get as many awards as they want, even if they have only worked for the company for one day.
Racism and prejudice
It is against the law for a company to treat someone differently because:
• race
• place of birth
• race or ethnicity
• country, which includes citizenship
It would be direct discrimination if, say, a boss wouldn't hire someone because they weren't white and Scottish.
Any kind of bias based on religion or belief
It is against the law for a company to treat someone differently because:
• religion—any religion
• believe—this includes any religious or philosophical view
• not having any faith
• not having any faith
Laws don't say what religion or belief is. But religion could include humanism and atheism.
For instance, if a boss paid Christians more than non-Christians, that would be clear discrimination.
Abuse of power because of a disability
Under the Equality Act, a workplace is breaking the law by discriminating against someone with a disability if they:
• Treats an employee or job applicant with a disability less well than other people because of their disability. For instance, if someone is in a wheelchair, a company might not hire them even though they are qualified for the job. This is straight discrimination based on disability, which is always wrong.
• Has a rule or policy that, while it affects everyone, makes people with the same disability worse off than people who don't have it. Indirect prejudice is what this is.
• Being unfair to a worker or job application because of a disability you know about. For instance, an employer fires an employee because they have been absent for a long time because they had to have an arm removed after a car accident. Discrimination based on handicap is the term for this.
• Doesn't do what it's supposed to do and make a fair adjustment for a disabled worker or job applicant. It is not okay to treat people differently in this way.
What makes someone disabled?
When looking at the Equality Act, a person is generally considered to be disabled if they have a physical or mental impairment that makes it very hard for them to do normal day-to-day things.
There are, however, special rules for people with certain disabilities, such as diseases that get worse over time. Aside from that, some people are thought to be crippled, like those with HIV, cancer, or poor vision.
A mental illness is also not required to be "clinically well-recognized" in order to be considered a mental disability under the Act.
Making reasonable changes
an employer is required by law to make reasonable changes so that a disabled person can work or keep working if they would be significantly disadvantaged compared to workers who are not disabled.
These changes can be made to any rule, requirement, or practice, as well as the physical parts of their grounds. Most of the time, reasonable changes won't cost your business much or anything at all.

6. Discrimination in marriage, civil partnerships, maternity leave, and changing your gender

get married and form a civil partnership
when you hire people, you have to treat married people and people in civil partnerships the same. What this means is that any benefit, like private health care, that employees' spouses can get should also be available to employees' civil partners.
If an employee is married or in a civil partnership, however, you can give them benefits. If they are single or not in a civil partnership, you cannot.
Sex, pregnancy, and giving birth
It would be clear sex discrimination if a woman was fired because she was pregnant or asked to take maternity leave.
It might be possible to say that a job applicant must be male or female, though, if that's what the job calls for.
The law makes it clear that sexual harassment and harassment related to sex is illegal in the workplace or in professional training. Sexual harassment can come in many forms, such as offensive jokes, the showing of sexually explicit material, sexual hints, or lewd words or actions. It also includes sending sexy emails to other people, even if they aren't sent to the person being bullied.
Discrimination against gender transition
It is against the law to treat someone differently because they have had, are having, or plan to have gender transition.
Also, it's against the law to treat them worse than someone who is sick for a different reason and for the same amount of time.
People who want to undergo gender reassignment are protected from abuse from the moment they tell a doctor about their plans.
A "trans person" who wants to change their gender must live as someone of the opposite sex before they can have surgery. This includes using single-sex toilets that are proper for your gender. Because of this, you would need to talk to the person about when they want to switch from using one set of services to the other. This is likely to happen during the "social gender" transition, when they act like they belong to the chosen sex even though they don't physically fit that sex.
A gender recognition certificate (GRC) is how a trans person can officially record that they have changed their gender. They will be given a new birth record in the new gender once they have a GRC. This would mean that you would have to treat a transgender person with a GRC like a woman. For example, you might need to change your job records to reflect this.
 

7. Getting behind variety and equality

The best way to encourage equality and diversity at work is to have a written strategy on the subject.
Policies on equality and diversity
If as a business owner or manager you can't show that you tried to stop your workers from being unfair, you could be held responsible for any discrimination they do.
It is important to have an equality and diversity strategy as one of the main ways to do this. This would be backed up by an action plan to get the policy out there and make sure everyone in the company understands and follows it.
To stop discrimination, your policy should say that you will work to support equality and diversity in areas like hiring, training, and pay.
Also, it should
• Make sure your employees know what you expect from them, like treating clients and co-workers with care and dignity
• Explain to your workers what their legal rights and duties are

The Model Workplace for Aces
The Aces Model Workplace tool can help you figure out how well your diversity and equality policies are working and give you advice on how to make and keep good working relationships. Click on the link to learn more about the Aces Model Workplace.
Reviews of equal pay
there may be pay gaps that need to be fixed, so you might want to do a pay check. They want to make sure that everyone who works there gets the same pay and working conditions and does the same kind of work.
The reviews can help avoid "glass ceiling" workplaces, which are ones where some types of people don't get promoted past a certain point. Also, these checks can help make sure that a policy on fair pay is being followed.
Equal pay reviews can be done by someone in the company who has been trained to deal with equality problems, or they can be done by a team of experts from outside the company.

 

8. Keeping an eye on variety and equality

you should keep an eye on diversity and equality to see how well your equality strategy is working.
In this case, if you notice that your workforce isn't as varied as it should be, you will need to figure out why and do something to make the policy work better.
How do you monitor?
Monitoring means getting information about the diversity of your current or future employees. You can compare and analyse this data with data about other groups of workers at your company, people looking for work in your area, and the national job market.
It is rare that the number of men, women, and other groups will all be the same. Monitoring means looking for big changes between groups or long-term patterns and then figuring out why they happen.
Getting workers to help with checking
some staff may need to be told why tracking is important in order to get the most out of the process.
For instance, some workers might not like filling out forms for monitoring. If so:

• Let them know that you will keep any information they give you secret.
• Let them know that you are watching the process to make your equality policy a reality.
• Point out that a programmed that works is good for business

It might help to have people from the workplace help you describe what monitoring is for.
If your company doesn't have any reps, you might want to start a working group. For workers, this can be a place to go if they need to speak up about something.
Besides that, you must also:

• Tell people applying for jobs from outside the company to fill out the tracking form.
• Assure employees that all information gathered will be kept secret.
• Choose an upper-level manager or staff person to lead the monitoring process.
• Choose the best way to get your message across, such as through magazine pieces or an intranet site just for your company.

In every question, make sure there is a "prefer not to say" choice. However, don't make people fill out a tracking form or "punish" them in any way if they don't want to.
Getting the tracking information from job applicants
it’s a good idea to hand out tracking information on a separate sheet from the job application form. That way, the information won't be connected to the process of choosing.
Make it clear that the information will only be used to track equality and not to choose the best candidates.
What kinds of data you should gather
In order to do anything, you should gather knowledge about the six main areas of equality law:
• age
• race
• sex
• being disabled
• faith or belief
• gender or sexuality
What you ought to try to discover
It is a good idea to keep an eye on your employees from the time they are hired until they terminate their job.
In other words, find out:
• who wants to work for you
• the people you meet and the ones you hire
• the person you tout
• who you train and where they work
• who files complaints at work
• Why and with whom you punish people
• Who isn't there or is sick, and why?
• the people you fire
• who leaves the business

 

How to read and understand monitoring data
Comparisons between groups of employees or job applicants are what monitoring is all about. If there is a real difference, you need to find out why it exists.
Always remember that a difference isn't always a bad thing. If, say, the number of job applicants was equal between men and women, that would be very strange.
Employers can find out about their rights under equality law from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Check out our tips on how to set the right pay rates.