Diversity training- a necessity at the work place

Posted by adairsawyer on November 6th, 2012

Cultural diversity is a reality in most European countries and it comes as no surprise that countries that want to eliminate cultural barriers at the workplace come up with laws and programs that are meant to help employers deal with cultural diversity in a positive manner. Managers and executives who are interested in creating and fostering a diverse workplace should consider implementing a solid diversity training program. Unlike what most people believe, diversity goes beyond race and a diverse workplace includes people of different races, religions, genders, cultures, sexual orientation, age and physical abilities. If you are interested in this aspect and in ensuring an ideal workplace for your employees you should become familiar with the equality act 2010.

There are other variables that add to the diversity of a workplace apart from race, religion, gender, age, culture and sexual orientation and these are geographical location, education level and even parental status. For this reason, it is essential to provide diversity training at the workplace and to make sure that all of your employees are treated equally. We are not wrong to say that diversity training is highly beneficial for it will teach you how to recruit a diverse group of new-hires during a hiring period, how to maintain a peaceful work environment and how to lead a diverse organisation.

Furthermore, diversity training introduces bias to the employees and managers and it is essential in order to create and maintain a diverse workplace. Nowadays, there are several options when it comes to diversity training and you can even opt for online training which is designed to teach you how to work within a diverse workplace. Such training is useful for it teaches you how to interact with individuals from different cultures and how to approach them in a way that will foster respect. Also, such a training program outlines the benefits of working with a diverse team and it enables you to become familiar with the diversity laws.

Moving on, if you have a diverse workplace you should become familiar with the equality act 2010. We should start by saying that this act is designed to help employers offer equal opportunities to their employees and it deals with dual discrimination, positive discrimination in recruitment, ban on pre-employment health questions, pay gagging clauses, gender pay gap reporting and associative and perceptive discrimination.  In simpler words, the equality act 2010 permits dual discrimination claims, provided the claim is made based on the grounds of two protected characteristics. Furthermore, this act allows employers to hire a person from an under-represented group provided this person is equally qualified.

Also, the equality act 2010 no longer allows employers to ask pre-employment health questions unless one of the limited exceptions in the Act is met. Thanks to the equality act 2010, pay secrecy clauses are unenforceable against employees who discuss pay for the purpose of establishing whether they are being discriminated against. Last, this act prohibits all forms of direct discrimination based on association with someone who has a protected characteristic and perception related to a protected characteristic!

As you can see diversity training is worth the attention for it is designed to make the workplace a better place. We invite you to check out our website for more information onthe equality act 2010 and the changes it brought!