Blog Ten - Equality and Diversity

Blog 10 – Equality and Diversity

Equality occurs when people treat others as equal and with fairness. Employers treating staff with a level of respect in which they would like to receive equally. Their are legislation acts which have been put in place for employers to follow to ensure that staff are treated fairly, for example the Equal pay act 1970. Diversity looks at people with differing values, beliefs and backgrounds within a business. This includes bringing different skills to contribute to a business such as communication skills, team working techniques and integration (Anon., 2012). ‘The basic contrast with equal opportunities is an acceptance that there are differences between people, that such differences can be valued and that they are the source of productive potential within an organisation’. (Bratton and Gold, 2007)

Age legislation act came into force in 2006 to ensure no discrimination towards people according to age. This includes all ages including young and old and all areas of work including private and public sector employment (Nielsen, 2006). As an employer this may affect their balance of staff as they will be encouraged to employ staff of all ages and failure to do so may have certain effects. If there are a significant number of workers employed within a specific age group, other applicants may feel they have been treated unfairly as it may be evident that the employer may only wish to employ workers of a specific age. This may be due to the type of work tasks in which will be carried out, for example employers of a building company may only wish to accept young workers with a specific strong physique enabling them to benefit most from increased productivity from work carried out. However in the long term this may have an effect on their image in the public eye as workers may feel they are being treated unfairly due to age discrimination and therefore refrain from applying for jobs with the company in the future.

People can hold many stereotypes about the younger and older generation of workers. People may have a generalised belief that younger workers are unwilling to find jobs due to little motivation and employers may also carry this similar belief therefore being less inclined to employ such workers. This may be due to a reduction in overall productivity and possible reoccurring absenteeism. ’A benefit to businesses of spending more time with young people is that they might also come to recognise the vast reservoir of talent that exists, rather than perpetuating negative stereotypes of an army of unskilled, unmannered hoodies’ (Rayment, 2011).Older workers may be perceived as having insufficient skills to be able to carry out everyday working practices. ‘2.8 million people over the age of 45 are without paid work in the UK’ (Knight, 2006). Due to age concerns, employers may be hesitant to employ older workers due to the lack of academic qualifications, however this may be argued with the amount of relevant experience gained from older workers.  Therefore employers must ensure they balance the diversity of employees that fill their job roles to ensure equality is met.

When looking at how organisations can attempt to change these attitudes and stereotypes people have on age of workers, they could start a scheme to ensure they take on a certain number of each age group of workers each year and adapt job roles to suit the employees. This would ensure that all applicants had equal chance of employment and can engage in a job role which suits their personality, skill set and work life balance. Secondly, businesses can employ workers on a voluntary basis to begin with to see how well different age groups of people work in the specific sector of the organisation. This ensures young and old members of the community that may need financial government support in the format of claiming beneficial allowance to demonstrate their skills to potential employers encouraging younger and older workers to find work for themselves. ‘The Work Programme is part of the Employment Skills and Enterprise Scheme. It aims to get people claiming certain benefits into sustained work’ (Anon., 2012) . The work programme described is a similar idea which would benefit potential workers of certain age groups to help them back into paid work and therefore benefiting their lifestyle and the community in the long run.

Sainsbury’s shows that they take into account equality and diversity when employing their workforce and show the importance of equal opportunities to their organisation. ‘Our aim is to create an environment where everyone is welcome and where everyone can be the best they can be’ (Anon., 2012) .This statement shows that all members of the public who apply for jobs at Sainsbury’s are eligible to work regardless of factors such as background or social class. By incorporating diversity into their business ethics, they have a ‘Diversity champion programme’ involving 140 of their managers. Through this programme, they can gather feedback on diversity within their organisation and find ways of improving how the programme will improve diversity within their employees. They have also developed a ‘Disability confidence programme’ in collaboration with sponsoring the London 2012 Paralympic games. Through the programme, managers are trained on how best to serve and treat customers and colleagues with disabilities. This programme ensures equality is delivered to all members of staff to ensure equality and diversity is met by the organisation.

To conclude, equality and diversity is evidently becoming more important to all organisations. This may be due to continuing introduction and development of legislation in which businesses must abide by. Also it is beneficial for businesses to take into account such factors to ensure they follow a competitive strategy with rival companies but also to engage with the public to ensure they are aware of the policies the organisations uphold. Overall this will not only benefit an organisations public image but also will develop social relationships with consumers encouraging loyalty and therefore improving profitability in the long run.

References

Anon. (2012) Equality and Diversity (E&D) [online]. London South Bank University. Available from: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/diversity/resources/definitions.htm [Accessed: 2 May 2012].

Anon. (2012) Equality, Diversity and Inclusion [online]. Sainsburys.Jobs. Available from: http://sainsburys.jobs/information/diversity [Accessed: 2 May 2012].

Anon. (2012) Government Employment Schemes [online]. Citizens Advice Bureau. Available from: http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/work_e/work_self-employed_or_looking_for_work_e/government_employment_schemes.htm [Accessed: 2 May 2012].

Bratton, J. and Gold, J. (2007) Human resource management - Theory and Practice. 4th ed. China: Palgrave Macmillan.

Knight, J. (2006) How UK 'turned its back' on older workers [online]. BBC News. Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5324146.stm [Accessed: 2 May 2012].

Nielsen, C. (2006) Age regulations 2006 [online]. University and college union. Available from: http://www.ucu.org.uk/media/pdf/9/t/ageregs_guidance_1.pdf [Accessed: 2 May 2012].

Rayment, N. (2011) Guardian Careers [online]. The Guardian. Available from: http://careers.guardian.co.uk/careers-blog/career-perceptions-sector-stereotypes [Accessed: 2 May 2012].