# Equality and diversity at work

*The Equality Act in the situations that actually arise, including the ones where being well meaning is not a defence.*

## Production summary

- Modules to record: 2
- Total script: 1077 words, about 7 minutes of finished audio
- Voices: Amara (host) and Nadia (practice educator)
- Level: All staff and managers

## Accreditation wording that must appear in the description

- **The CPD Certification Service** (planned): Application scheduled.

> Do not upgrade any of these words in a description or a thumbnail. Aligned is not accredited, and planned is not approved.


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## Where discrimination actually happens at work

**Runtime** about 4 minutes. **Words** 525. **Starts at** 00:00 in the full course recording.

### Learning outcomes to state on camera

- Identify the four forms of prohibited conduct in workplace situations
- Spot indirect discrimination in a rota, a policy or a requirement
- Apply the reasonable adjustments duty
- Challenge and escalate proportionately

### Script


`[CUE 1]` *Four prohibited conducts with a workplace example on each.*

**AMARA**  [00:00]
We do this training every year and it is always the nine protected characteristics.

**NADIA**  [00:05]
Which is the least useful part, because almost nobody at your work discriminates on purpose. The interesting question is where it happens when nobody intended it.

**AMARA**  [00:16]
Where does it?

**NADIA**  [00:17]
Rotas, policies and requirements. Things that feel completely neutral because they apply to everyone.


`[CUE 2]` *A neutral rota rule shown disadvantaging a group, then justified with reasons.*

**AMARA**  [00:22]
Give me one.

**NADIA**  [00:24]
A requirement to work every other weekend. Applies to everybody equally. And it disadvantages people with caring responsibilities, who are disproportionately women.

**AMARA**  [00:32]
So we cannot have weekend rotas?

**NADIA**  [00:35]
Of course you can. Indirect discrimination can be justified if it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, and running a seven day service is obviously legitimate.


`[CUE 3]` *Intention crossed out beside effect, for harassment and indirect discrimination.*

**AMARA**  [00:46]
So what is the problem?

**NADIA**  [00:48]
That it is a test you have to pass, with reasons, and most organisations have never asked the question at all. Nobody sat down and asked who this disadvantages and whether there is a less discriminatory way to get the same outcome.

**AMARA**  [01:05]
And if we did ask, and wrote it down?

**NADIA**  [01:09]
Then you are in a completely different position if it is ever challenged. Same rota, same aim, defensible instead of indefensible.


`[CUE 4]` *Reasonable adjustment triggered by knowledge, not by a diagnosis letter.*

**AMARA**  [01:17]
What about banter? Everybody says it is just banter.

**NADIA**  [01:21]
Harassment is unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic that violates dignity or creates a degrading or offensive environment. And the test is the effect, considered reasonably, not the intention.

**AMARA**  [01:33]
So we did not mean it is not a defence.

**NADIA**  [01:37]
Not to harassment, and not to indirect discrimination either. It is true, it is usually sincere, and it is not a defence to either of them. That is the single most useful sentence in this module.


`[CUE 5]` *Sickness trigger point adjusted for disability related absence.*

**AMARA**  [01:51]
Reasonable adjustments. When does the duty start?

**NADIA**  [01:54]
When you know, or could reasonably be expected to know, that somebody is disabled and at a substantial disadvantage. Actual or constructive knowledge.

**AMARA**  [02:03]
Not when they produce a diagnosis?

**NADIA**  [02:06]
No, and waiting for a letter or an occupational health report before considering anything is one of the most expensive mistakes managers make. If somebody has told you they are struggling and why, the duty may already have started.


`[CUE 6]` *Victimisation shown as subtle: rota changes, exclusion, the difficult label.*

**AMARA**  [02:21]
What sort of adjustments are we talking about?

**NADIA**  [02:24]
Usually small. A shift change. A phased return. Different equipment. A quieter space. Written instructions instead of verbal. And the one people miss entirely: adjusting a sickness absence trigger point so disability related absence is not counted the same way as everything else.

**AMARA**  [02:41]
We definitely count it the same.

**NADIA**  [02:44]
Then that is a discrimination arising from disability claim waiting to be made, and it is one of the commonest there is. Adjusting the trigger is very often the reasonable adjustment.

**AMARA**  [02:56]
Last thing. Somebody raises a complaint. What do I need to be careful about?

**NADIA**  [03:02]
Victimisation, and this is the trap. Treating somebody worse because they complained, or supported somebody else's complaint, is unlawful in itself.

**AMARA**  [03:10]
Even if the original complaint was not upheld?

**NADIA**  [03:13]
Even then. And it is rarely dramatic. It is being left off the rota for the good shifts, being excluded from conversations, being quietly labelled difficult. That is usually the part that turns a defensible case into an indefensible one.

### Sources for the on screen credit

- Equality Act 2010, legislation.gov.uk
- Employment statutory code of practice, Equality and Human Rights Commission
- Reasonable adjustments guidance, ACAS

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## Inclusive practice: recruitment, rotas and the everyday

**Runtime** about 4 minutes. **Words** 552. **Starts at** 03:29 in the full course recording.

### Learning outcomes to state on camera

- Remove bias from a recruitment process without lowering the bar
- Handle religious observance, dress and dietary needs at work
- Respond when a service user discriminates against a member of staff
- Build a culture where people raise things early

### Script


`[CUE 1]` *Fit as a criterion reproducing the existing workforce.*

**AMARA**  [03:29]
We do not discriminate. Our recruitment is fair.

**NADIA**  [03:33]
Then let me ask about the mechanics rather than the intent, because that is where it happens. Who shortlists?

**AMARA**  [03:40]
Usually whoever is free.

**NADIA**  [03:42]
Against what criteria?

**AMARA**  [03:43]
Experience, mostly. A feel for whether they would fit.


`[CUE 2]` *An essential list collapsing to three items under the rejection question.*

**NADIA**  [03:47]
And there it is, said in good faith. Fit is the single most reliable way to reproduce whoever is already there, because what fit means in practice is resembles us.

**AMARA**  [03:59]
What should I do instead?

**NADIA**  [04:01]
Write the person specification from the job, not from the last person who did it. Score against agreed criteria. Ask every candidate the same core questions. And never interview alone, because a single interviewer hires themselves.

**AMARA**  [04:15]
Does that not lower the bar?

**NADIA**  [04:17]
It raises it. You are now measuring the thing you actually need instead of measuring familiarity and confidence, which correlate with background rather than with competence.


`[CUE 3]` *A clean driving licence requirement excluding disabled applicants on a single site role.*

**AMARA**  [04:28]
Anything in our adverts?

**NADIA**  [04:29]
Read the last one and ask of every requirement: would we genuinely reject a brilliant candidate for lacking this? Most essential lists collapse to about three things.

**AMARA**  [04:40]
We ask for a clean driving licence.

**NADIA**  [04:43]
Which excludes a lot of disabled applicants, and is genuinely essential far less often than it appears on adverts. If the role is on one site, it is not essential, it is habit.

**AMARA**  [04:56]
We also ask for continuous employment history.


`[CUE 4]` *Bare below the elbows met with disposable sleeves rather than a prohibition.*

**NADIA**  [04:59]
Which excludes carers, people who have been ill, and people who served a prison sentence and have come out. You wanted to check for gaps, which is a Schedule 3 requirement anyway, and you have written it as a bar.

**AMARA**  [05:15]
Let us do requests. Prayer, fasting, dress.

**NADIA**  [05:18]
Nearly all of these are easy and are made hard by not having thought about them until somebody asks. Prayer needs a short break and a clean, private space. Most services can do that with a room and a small rota change.

**AMARA**  [05:35]
And Ramadan?

**NADIA**  [05:35]
Expect lower energy late in the day, think about shift preferences, and do not schedule your heaviest work at the point somebody has not eaten for fifteen hours. That is management, not accommodation.


`[CUE 5]` *Two responses to a resident's refusal, both wrong, and the third path.*

**AMARA**  [05:49]
Uniform and religious dress?

**NADIA**  [05:50]
Apply the policy with regard to religious dress. And where there is a genuine safety reason, like bare below the elbows in clinical care, the answer is an adjustment that meets both. Disposable sleeves. Not a flat prohibition, which is where services end up in a tribunal.

**AMARA**  [06:09]
Right. The hard one. A resident refuses care from a black colleague.

**NADIA**  [06:14]
It happens, and services get it wrong in both directions. Either they quietly rearrange the rota forever, or they tell the worker it is the dementia and to get on with it.

**AMARA**  [06:27]
What is right?


`[CUE 6]` *A silent permanent rota accommodation read by staff as agreement.*

**NADIA**  [06:28]
Support the worker first and ask what they want, because their view matters and it is genuinely not predictable. Some want it addressed head on and some want no fuss.

**AMARA**  [06:40]
And the resident?

**NADIA**  [06:41]
Assess capacity and cause. A preference expressed by somebody with advanced dementia is a different situation from consistently expressed prejudice by somebody with full capacity, and they need different responses.

**AMARA**  [06:53]
Can I just change the rota permanently?

**NADIA**  [06:56]
Not silently. If you make a permanent accommodation with no decision, no rationale and no review, the organisation has quietly agreed with the resident. And your staff notice that immediately, and the ones with options leave.

### Sources for the on screen credit

- Employment statutory code of practice, Equality and Human Rights Commission
- Religion or belief in the workplace, ACAS
- Managing third party harassment, Equality and Human Rights Commission

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