What is equality?
Equality is ensuring individuals or groups of individuals are not treated differently or less favourably , on the basis of their specific protected characteristic, including areas of race, gender, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation and age.
Promoting equality should remove discrimination in all of the aforementioned areas. Bullying, harassment or victimization are also considered as equality and diversity issues.
What is diversity?
Diversity aims to recognise, respect and value people’s differences to contribute and realise their full potential by promoting an inclusive culture for all staff.
Equality and diversity in the workplace mean a lot of things. They’re about respecting your staff for their individual age, gender, race, cultural background, career experience, skills, beliefs (religious and philosophical), sexual orientation, and more.
The Equality Act 2010 protects people from discrimination related to any protected characteristics—of which there are nine.
- Age
- Disability
- Gender reassignment
- Marriage and civil partnership
- Pregnancy and maternity
- Race
- Religion and belief
- Sex
- Sexual orientation
Creating a company culture where you inspire and encourage your staff to express their unique thoughts and ideas is important. People can’t access their creativity much when your workplace culture forces them to fit in.
Why else is diversity in the workplace important?
A diverse workforce will help you better understand your customers.
If you want your business to appeal to customers all over the globe, and be inclusive of all protected characteristics, a diverse workforce will give you a competitive upper hand over many rival companies.
Many UK citizens have a disability, the benefit both to this large portion of society, and to businesses, surely comes in the form of integrating disabled workers into business. For any successful product or service, effective design involves knowing the user (the customer) as well as possible, and tailoring the design to the user—not the other way round. The less a person has to do to adjust to your product, the better your design.
A diverse workplace breaks down language barriers
Whilst English is a popular language it is not the only language, your business needs fluency if you are going to offer a global customer service. Employees from different nationalities, as well as staff who have taken learning a foreign language to an advanced level, you can take your business to new shores.
Promoting equality and diversity can increase employee satisfaction
In the UK, many large businesses now have to disclose information about their gender pay gaps. This means talented workers can review your company’s pay gap before they think about applying to your job ad. If you can demonstrate that you’re moving towards an equality of pay for men and women, you’ll attract more skilled workers.
