Discrimination

Policies and good practice

Anti-discrimination legislation applies to organisations in all sectors and irrespective of their size. Businesses must not discriminate against their employees, workers, self-employed contractors and agency workers. The business will be liable for the actions of those working for it and will have to pay any award of damages that the employment tribunal makes.

A prudent business will put in place checks and measures to ensure its workforce behaves appropriately.

An equal opportunities and diversity policy will have no effect if it remains an academic instrument. The business should distribute it to all staff and convene discussion groups and run training to explain the nuances of the legislation. As well as creating a fair workplace, such policies and training exercises can evidence that the business has taken all reasonable steps to eliminate discriminatory behaviour from the workplace and will promote the organisation’s defence in the event of a discrimination claim.

Where a discrimination arises

The legislation is engaged at an early stage of the work relationship, so that an organisation may be liable if it discriminates in the way in which it conducts a job recruitment process for instance.

The grounds on which discrimination will be deemed unlawful are called ‘protected characteristics’ and they are:

age
disability
gender reassignment
marriage and civil partnership
pregnancy and maternity
race
religion or belief
sex
sexual orientation

Unlawful discrimination can take various forms, for instance an employer may be liable for:

direct discrimination
associative discrimination
perceptive discrimination
indirect discrimination
disability discrimination
a failure to make reasonable adjustments
victimisation
harassment

Discrimination areas

Associative discrimination

An employer must not treat a person less favourably because it thinks, incorrectly, that the employee has a ‘protected characteristic‘. This is a type of direct discrimination. For example, in the situation where an employer does not offer a vacancy to the most suitable candidate because in interview they take the view incorrectly that the […]

Direct discrimination

An organisation must not treat one person less favourably than another because of a protected characteristic. For example, if an employer decides not to promote the most suitable candidate to the next management tier because it prefers not to have any more female staff at that level, then this is direct discrimination because of sex. […]

Disability discrimination

An employer must not treat a disabled person unfavourably because of something connected to their disability, unless the employer can show that their action is objectively justified. There is no unlawfulness if the employer does not know or could not reasonably have been expected to know that the person is disabled. Protection is also afforded in […]

Harassment

An employer must not harass a person. Behaviour will amount to harassment when it is: unwanted behaviour related to the protected characteristics sexual harassment less favourable treatment because of submission to or rejection of previous sex or gender reassignment harassment An employer may also be responsible for harassment of its staff by a third party […]

Indirect discrimination

An employer must not exercise a provision, criterion or practice (for example making a decision or applying a workplace rule) in relation to a person, which has a worse impact on them and others who share that particular ‘protected characteristic‘, than on people who do not have that characteristic, unless the employer can show that […]

Perceptive discrimination

Reasonable adjustments

Reasonable adjustments relate to disability discrimination. If the way in which the employer goes about doing things, or if there are physical features in the work environment that put a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage in comparison with people who are not disabled, then the employer must take such steps as it is reasonable […]

Victimisation

An employer must not treat a person less favourably because the person complains of discrimination (whether that’s bringing a legal case or just making an allegation of discrimination), or because they have upheld their equality law rights. For example, if the employer creates an oppressive environment for a person (for instance acting negatively) because they […]