Workplace Culture

It is illegal to discriminate against your workforce, whether intentionally or unintentionally, on the grounds of a protected characteristic.

The Equality Act 2010 outlines what the person has the right to or to be free from, but not what an employer must do to help ensure that this right is protected. The only exception to this is the public sector Equality Duty.

In simple terms, an individual can bring a discrimination claim against your business if you don’t have adequate, inclusive practices in place.

These guidelines are here to help to point you in the right direction.

A good place to start is to have a workplace policy.* ACAS provides a template to help get you started. A policy will help you to discuss and communicate
with your workforce about discrimination and the law, what kind of behaviour is expected and where to find procedures if there are any problems.

ACAS and CIPD provide more guidance here. In setting your policy it is important to review all your workplace practices from an EDI perspective to confirm that they align with your overall approach to EDI and that they don’t discriminate.

*A course or principle of action which is documented and then adopted by an organisation or individual.

Putting a policy in place or taking steps to reduce discrimination in the workplace relies on understanding the importance of EDI in all areas of work.

Ideally training should be provided to all colleagues at all levels so that they understand the essentials. There is no single approach that all businesses
can adopt to ensure EDI.

To be effective, practices need to be embedded into your way of working, and not treated as a
bolt-on. Company communications should support EDI aims, with workplace practices aligned, and leaders role modelling inclusive behaviour.

This could be in the form of a short course, ACAS have some free online learning, as well as reading your workplace policy and code of conduct.

Doing this regularly, for example like once a year, helps to keep awareness high. Another simple idea to keep the conversation going in a meaningful way could be having an Inclusion Calendar like this one, which can form the basis of awareness days as well as promote cross-cultural understanding through organised events.

For people managers and senior  leadership more in-depth training is beneficial to support the review of workplace practices and their implementation. The CIPD offers lots of online resources and an accredited course. For something a little cheaper, or not entirely self-led, ACAS offer training events which can be completed in a few hours.

Whatever the training approach, managers should receive sufficient training to enable them to feel confident about shaping the workplace culture to
become more inclusive, speak up and champion EDI, including looking out for signs of discrimination and discussing any potential issues that
need addressing.

Whether you develop a workplace policy or not, it is important to document and make clear what counts as unacceptable behaviour.

ACAS provides guidance about this and it could be communicated in a simple EDI code of conduct like this. Getting people to read and sign a code of conduct makes it clear that it is everyone’s responsibility. The CIPD’s responsibilities of employers and employee guidance outlines more detailed responsibilities that can be adopted, and outlined in a policy or code, to help prevent unacceptable behaviours.

Unfortunately, there may still be occasions where behaviours are identified that need to be addressed. For example the use of racist language in the workplace is unacceptable behaviour. You need to make it clear how this behaviour will be dealt with, and your workforce should be clear about where to find this information. You should ensure that your formal grievance, disciplinary, and dismissals procedures are adequate. ACAS provides lots of helpful guidelines. If you are ever unsure, you can contact the ACAS helpline for advice and support.

Caution! You must deal with bullying or harassment.

If someone is being bullied or harassed but you do nothing to stop it and they leave, they could claim constructive dismissal at an employment tribunal. Constructive dismissal is where the employee felt they had no choice but to resign. An employment tribunal will assess how well you have met ACAS guidelines and consider the employment of practice code too when ruling.

The ACAS policy template refers to the ‘make-up’ of your workforce and they recommend that this information is captured confidentially at the recruitment stage, as part of your job application process.

They offer a template to explain what information could be captured. To avoid discrimination, EDI information should be kept separate from the body of the application form and CV, therefore not provided to anyone involved in hiring, this is known as anonymised recruitment. For more information, see the inclusive hiring guideline.

If confidentiality is difficult to guarantee, say because of the size of your organisation, an anonymous and voluntary staff survey could be distributed instead. This survey could also be issued to current employees if you do build this step into your job application process.

Caution! Protected characteristic information can be special category data.

Special category data is personal data which needs more protection because it is sensitive. So, if you collect this data, active steps must be put in place to safeguard it.

For more information on data protection, you should visit the ICO website, but this includes:

Before collecting any data, you need to be clear in your privacy notice about what you need to collect, why you are collecting it and how you will use it. If you yet written a privacy notice, the ICO has a guided template to help you. Collect the minimum amount of information and be prepared to justify why you are collecting it.

Anonymise personal information where possible and as soon as possible, and access should be
restricted to people who need it to fulfil a job role to do so, ensuring that they are appropriately trained to handle this type of data. The information should not be used for other purposes if they have only provided it for monitoring. The ICO has a series of data protection training videos which are free of charge.

To help you understand more about the key terminology in this guideline, you can watch the series of videos by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. ACAS provides written explanations if you find this easier. For more specifically on bullying and harassment when dealing with complaints, the CIPD and ACAS can provide further help here too. For more general support in building inclusive workplaces, see this report commissioned by the CIPD. It is also helpful to link into other EDI initiatives like Investors in People or ISO 30415
in human resource management.

This toolkit offers practical help and ideas about social class diversity and inclusion. It supports those wanting to address a new frontier in their diversity and inclusion agenda – to find, attract and develop employees from all socio-economic backgrounds. Many are simple, low cost and relatively easy to do.

1. Identity who in your workforce can take responsibility for EDI matters, ask them to read this guideline and agree the resources needed and training for them to feel confident in their role.
2. Work to understand the demographics of the community your business recruits from and serves. The ONS census data is useful for this.
3. Download the ACAS template and review your current working practices against its contents and guidance. This should give you some idea of the potential gaps to be addressed. Discuss here whether you want to establish a policy, code of conduct, initiatives, training for all the workforce and/or the need to formalise any complaint process. Depending on your organisations size you may choose all or a combination of these but remember you always must be able to demonstrate what is required legally. ACAS is a useful resource here.
4. Reviewing your ways of working a step at a time can help to spot unintended discrimination. This could be completed by an employment or HR expert like this, or a team of people within your workforce. It will depend on your organisation and resources.
5. You can then plan for improvements you would like to make. For example, this could include signing up to the Care Leaver Covenant and/or the Caring Business Charter. Whatever you decide, these should have the support at the highest level of your business and be resourced appropriately so that they are delivered as timely as possible. Implementing and engaging your workforce in output of the monitor and review processes outlined in this guideline will keep this alive as a continuous improvement process.