Business owners need to comply with the new Act and should consider a review of all company policies, practices and procedures. This should include recruitment and selection right through to employees leaving the business. Any review should consider the following:

1.) Management training

As the Act contains many new provisions, it is essential that managers and staff are made aware of the 2010 Act and its implications. Any training programme should explain what behaviours are required to promote equality in the workplace and should also incorporate and reflect all aspects of the company’s activity that may be affected by the new provisions. The training should focus on: recruitment and selection, grievance and discipline, equality and diversity programmes.

2.) Auxiliary aids

Policies relating to the duty to make reasonable adjustments should be updated. The new duty compels employers to provide auxiliary aids such as hearing loops.

3.) Third parties

Contractors, clients and customers must be made aware of the unacceptability of harassment of staff, and this can be achieved by displaying public notices to this effect prominently at the place of work, and ensuring that there are robust procedures for dealing with all complaints of harassment. This should involve a review of the grievance procedure.

4.) Recruitment and selection

In the light of the new rules about pre-employment health questionnaires, all procedures should be reviewed and amended as necessary. There are limits on health checks and questions that an employer can make before making a job offer. No questions about an applicant’s past health or sickness absence should be asked, unless it falls within the permitted exemptions. Once a job offer is made, whether conditional or unconditional, the employer may then ask questions about health.

5.) Secrecy clauses

Consider whether to use pay secrecy clauses in documentation such as standard contracts and salary review letters. If the decision is to continue to use them, managers must be aware of the restrictions on enforcement and the prohibition of victimisation.

6.) Equal opportunities and diversity

In order to conform to the requirements and definitions in the 2010 Act, the company policies should be examined. Such policies should cover direct (including discrimination by association and perception) and indirect discrimination, harassment related to the seven specifically identified characteristics of:

• sexual orientation and sex
• disability
• age
• religion or belief
• gender reassignment
• race

7.) Victimisation

Victimisation policies should be reviewed to cover an employee or worker seeking a protected pay disclosure, as well as for involvement in claims for discrimination covering any of the protected characteristics.

8.) Absence

All company policies on employee absence should be reviewed. Unless an employer can objectively justify a policy of setting targets for absence which then trigger disciplinary procedures, this may amount to indirect disability discrimination (or discrimination arising from disability). The same would apply to decisions on warnings or dismissals for long-term absence.

REMEMBER!!

Implementation will undoubtedly entail significant amounts of additional work but it is important that staff at all levels in the business are aware of what is now expected of them. As with all Acts, failure to implement them leaves the company vulnerable to prosecution and fines which will have cost implications as well as potentially damaging the company’s reputation.