Everyone deserves to feel safe, respected, and welcome in their place of work. This is why equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) is so vital to successful businesses and workplaces. Good EDI practices benefit everyone: organisations, employees, and the wider community alike.
Diversity in particular is increasingly a key concern for employers. Let’s look at what exactly diversity is, how diversity will benefit your business, and how can you improve diversity in your workplace.
What is diversity and what are the benefits?
Diversity means recognising, accepting, and celebrating the differences between people, and creating an environment in which people from different walks of life are represented and able to thrive.
Diverse workplaces tend to have employees of different genders, races, religions, ages, physical abilities, sexual orientations, and more represented at every level of the organisation.
Diverse workplaces tend to be more innovative, agile, creative, and productive. They also enjoy a better reputation, greater employee wellbeing and satisfaction, a lower turnover rate, and a better understanding of their customer base.
What does the law say about diversity at work?
The Equality Act 2010 protects people from discrimination at work on the basis of 9 protected characteristics:
- age
- disability
- gender reassignment
- marriage and civil partnership
- pregnancy and maternity
- race
- religion or belief
- sex
- sexual orientation
This means it is illegal to treat anyone less favourably due to any of these characteristics. Anything that puts people with a protected characteristic at a disadvantage compared to people without it is covered by this law.
As an employer, you have a legal obligation to prevent discrimination, prevent bullying and harassment, and comply with equal pay legislation. Large employers (those with 250 or more employees) must also report on their gender pay gap.
In addition, employers in the public sector – such as local government, schools, the civil service, the police, and the NHS – have additional EDI responsibilities when exercising their public functions.
According to Springhouse Law, these duties include:
- Eliminating discrimination, harassment, victimisation under the Equality Act 2010
- Advancing equality of opportunity
- Fostering good relations between people who share a relevant protected characteristic and those who don’t
If you’re not sure how the law around diversity at work applies to your organisation, we always recommend consulting an expert in employment law.
5 ways to promote diversity at work
1. Actively work against unconscious bias
Unconscious biases are prejudices, assumptions, or stereotypes about a group of people that you are not consciously aware of having. We all hold unconscious bias, and it is shaped by our society and culture.
It is vital to actively work against unconscious bias on both a personal and organisational level. You can do this by questioning and reconsidering your assumptions before you act on them, including a more diverse array of people in important decisions such as hiring or promotions, and practicing anonymous hiring (removing information that may give away factors such as the candidate’s age, race, or gender before reviewing applications).
It is also a good idea to provide unconscious bias training to everyone in your organisation as part of your onboarding and annual training programme.
2. Write inclusive job ads and descriptions
Job ads that are unintentionally exclusionary can discourage diverse candidates from applying and create a homogenous workplace. An inclusive hiring process begins with an inclusive job ad. Here’s how to do it:
- Remove gendered language (write “they” instead of “he or she”)
- Be aware of gender-coded words
- Remove terms like “digital native,” which can imply an age bias, and state the specific digital skills you need instead
- Instead of asking for a “native English speaker,” state that you need a candidate with strong written and verbal communication skills
- Remove physical requirements that are not absolutely critical to performing the role
- Be wary of culturally insensitive terms such as “guru”
If in doubt, ask a sensitivity reader to have a look over your job ad before you publish it.
3. Create an equal pay policy
By law, men and women must receive equal pay for equal work. In other words, someone cannot receive a lower salary or less favourable employment terms than an employee in the same or equivalent role who is a different gender.
Creating an equal pay policy shows that you take this matter seriously and outlines what you are doing to ensure there is not a pay gap within your organisation. Start by conducting a pay audit, reviewing your policies regarding how pay and benefits are determined, encourage open conversations about pay, and limit individual managerial discretion in setting pay.
Set pay bands and clear, consistent, and transparent policies regarding how pay is set are great ways to combat unequal pay across not only gender lines, but throughout your organisation.
4. Consider, acknowledge, and celebrate a variety of cultural and religious traditions
Throughout the year, your office may celebrate holidays like Christmas with traditions such as decorations, parties, and Secret Santa gift exchanges. While there is nothing wrong with these festivities, they can be unintentionally exclusionary if Christian holidays are the only ones you acknowledge.
Aim to be more inclusive by considering and celebrating a variety of cultural and religious traditions in line with the demographics of your organisation. If in doubt, ask your employees to share which traditions are important to them and how (or if) they would like them to be celebrated at work. Simple steps, such as removing religious iconography and rebranding your Christmas party as a holiday or end-of-year party, can be a good place to start.
Don’t forget to acknowledge other cultures and religions in smaller and consistent ways, too. For example, when you are scheduling a meeting or event, aim to make sure it does not clash with any major religious or cultural holiday.
5. Support and promote employee networks
Employee networks – such as those for Black employees, LGBTQ+ employees, or women in male-dominated industries – can help employees to forge connections, drive diversity, and increase opportunities for marginalised groups. As an employer, showing your support to these groups can be a great way to show that you prioritise diversity and take inclusion seriously.
Ways to support employee networks can include providing organisational funding for events, allowing employees to take time away from their regular duties to organise or attend meetings, and providing other resources such as meeting spaces and promotion across official channels.
Create more inclusive, dynamic workplaces with Youth Employment UK Membership
In our 2024 Youth Voice Census report, 36% of young people said they look for an employer with a good inclusion and diversity policy when applying for work, and 27% look for people like them working there.
With Membership, you can measure and boost your efforts to create an inclusive and diverse workplace with hundreds of expert resources and Member-only events, including access to the Benchmark which includes entry into the Good Youth Employment Awards. Talk to us about Membership today.
