Race  |  Religious and Belief  |  Gender  |  Sexual Orientation  |  Age  |  Disability

Whilst organizations are not required to have a formal equality policy in place, it now considered best practice to mitigate the substantial financial risks associated with the 'No win - No Fee' litigation mentality now existent in cases of perceived harassment, discrimination and victimization.

Harassment may include bullying, name calling, making offensive comments or insinuations, avoiding sitting or working near to an individual so that they are made to feel unwanted and isolated, excluding an individual from particular activities, speaking to an individual in a way that is demeaning or mocking and so on. It may be deliberate or may not be intended to be malicious, but is nevertheless hurtful. It may not be specifically targeted at an individual but may be the result of behavior which creates a particular environment or culture. A culture that, for example, tolerates the telling of religious jokes, the use of offensive slang in respect of different religions or beliefs or mocks practices associated with particular religions or beliefs may be intimidating or hostile.

Victimization within discrimination situations most often occurs to people who:

• have made a complaint about being discriminated against or harassed.
• intend to make a complaint about discrimination or harassment.
• have acted or intend to act as a witness or give evidence in support of another person relating to a complaint about discrimination or harassment.

Victimization may present in many ways. It may be that individuals are refused requests for time off, denied promotion or training, ignored by their manager or colleagues, criticized continually for their work, ‘messed around’ with respect to their work allocation or shift arrangement/days off and so on.

An organization may be liable to pay compensation unless it can show that it really had taken all reasonable steps to prevent discrimination, victimization and harassment. By putting a formal equality policy in place, it is made clear to all employees that harassment, victimization and discrimination will not be tolerated in your organization, and that action will be taken on any breaches.

All managers, supervisors and employees should be trained in the content and operating procedures of the Equality Policy, and training updates should be scheduled as the policy evolves or when Regulations change. Equality training should be an integral part of employee inductions, and proof of equality regulations knowledge should be kept in the employee's records as they could be personally liable to pay compensation for discrimination, victimization or harassment.

It is important to recognize that anything done by a person in the course of his employment shall be treated as done by his employer. If an employee is discriminated against, victimized or harassed at work, the employer is fully liable, even if the company is completely opposed to such acts. 

In a sentence - Discrimination is unlawful whether it is intentional or not.

Whilst training diversity regulations to prevent Direct Discrimination is relatively easy, training an understanding of Indirect Discrimination is far more complicated, as the occurrences of Indirect Discrimination are often very subtle. What one employee considers as humor, another employee may consider as harassment or discrimination. For this reason, the Best Practice Transfer Ltd. Diversity training system uses full audiovisual situational diversity training to give employees the opportunity to step back and look through someone else's eyes to gain an understanding of when an off-color remark crosses the boundary into discrimination. As trainers make the training modules using staff volunteers, the actual course preparation provokes pro-active discussion and feedback of real situations that have occurred in  a company's specific work environment that need resolving. The training simulation modules are made quickly and economically for computer based training distribution, and the qualification of each employee is captured and recorded by the built in Learning Management System. If you need help or advice on setting up or integrating a discrimination and diversity function in your company, or need to outsource the production of a solution, we offer consulting and outsourcing services to assist you from the strategic planning phase through to implementation and staff training.

Race Diversity and Discrimination Training        (go to top of page)

A racial group may be defined by race, color, nationality (including citizenship), or national or ethnic origin. 

Direct Discrimination

Direct discrimination occurs when someone is treated less favorably on racial grounds. Racial grounds include not only grounds of race but also those of color, nationality, citizenship, and ethnic or national origin.

The Race Relations Act 1976 makes it unlawful to publish advertisements that discriminate on racial grounds, or to make arrangements for such advertisements. Both publishers and advertisers are legally responsible for ensuring that advertisements are lawful.

The Commission for Racial Equality's Code of Practice in employment does however allow exceptions to the Race Relations Act that can be used by organizations and employers when an obvious business need is evidenced.

Indirect discrimination

Indirect discrimination occurs when company rules, requirements or conditions can be shown to put people from a particular racial group at a significantly greater disadvantage than others, and the rules cannot be objectively justified. 

To justify a practice as non-discriminatory, an employer must show that there is a real business need for the practice; it is clearly proportionate to that business need, and there really is no alternative approach to meet that business need. 

Religion and Belief Diversity and Discrimination Training        (go to top of page)

The Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations became effective in December 2003.

Religion and belief encompasses not only the religious affiliation of an employee, but also very importantly, the belief structures associated with that religious affiliation. An obvious example of belief discrimination would be expecting non job specific activities using physical contact which is inappropriate for some beliefs.

There are genuine occupational requirement religious and belief exceptions that common sense, and the law allows. It is not discriminatory to choose a Roman Catholic to be the chaplain of a Roman Catholic school, nor is it discriminatory to require a halal butcher to be a Muslim as this is required by the Islamic faith. However, all genuine operational requirements can be challenged, and the burden of proof lies with the employer who must produce evidence to justify the requirement.

Direct discrimination

Direct discrimination occurs when an action occurs that disadvantages a person based on their religion or belief. (Note: Indirection discrimination normally relates to procedures that disadvantage people.)