The new equality bill will encourage fair representation, probably by encouraging positive discrimination – allowing organisations that are recruiting staff to favour equally-qualified candidates from an under-represented group. Some reports have suggested that mandatory equality auditing may also be implemented to address the issue. Sandra Wallace, employment law partner at DLA Piper, has doubts about how welcome the legislation will be: “Equality auditing may require large organisations to disclose gender and minority group representation in the workplace and, although it may yield long-term benefits, it would come as a costly and unwelcome surprise to many businesses during the recession.”

Rachel Dineley, Employment Partner and head of the Diversity and Discrimination Unit at law firm Beachcroft LLP agreed with Sandra’s statement, saying:”While many will welcome the expressed aims of the equality bill, businesses as a whole are likely to see it as yet another change in the law that will absorb resources at a most unwelcome time.”

There are additional potential risks as Sandra points out: “The chances that managers could misapply positive discrimination could lead to disgruntled candidates suing and this may strongly discourage many organisations from applying it. On top of this, there are risks that colleagues may think someone got their job due to their race, sex or disability which could cause significant friction at work.”

To tackle the gender pay gap, the equality bill is widely expected to ban pay secrecy clauses that prevent employees from revealing their remuneration to colleagues. The government claims that these are used in a quarter of workplaces and that banning them will help expose gender pay gaps and encourage action to address these disparities. However, DLA Piper’s research, conducted last month, estimated only six percent of organisations currently operate pay secrecy clauses and that banning the clauses would only encourage 15 percent of organisations to review gender pay differences within a year.

Sandra also gave theHRDIRECTOR magazine some advice for HR directors faced with dealing with the changes – she recommends HR directors should take the opportunity to start reviewing pay as they are likely to be re-evaluating other parts of the business: “Take the time while doing reviews to look at pay strucutures now: we’re not saying they’ll be able to address them all in one go, especially in this environment: but it’s clear that the government has signalled some intention to look at this area and perhaps ‘name and shame’ so it’s important to start now to address the inequalities that exist in organisations.”

The equality bill will also legislate against discrimination by association so that individuals caring for disabled or elderly people can not be discriminated against. This development, along with recently enhanced rights to flexible working, could prove a source of concern for HR professionals. Over a quarter (28 percent) have had to balance competing requests from, for example, a parent of a young child and a request from a carer of a disabled relative and over half (58 percent) of these HR professionals have been unable to accommodate all requests. Over two thirds (69 percent) think that balancing these request is likely to become an increasing issue in their workplace.

Sandra concludes: “According to research among senior HR professionals, and only one in 20 currently reports on gender pay. This underlines how large an impact the new regulations will have and they will certainly be the source of much controversy. Additionally, businesses that are bidding for public sector contracts will have to ensure they meet strict new procurement guidelines that scrutinise a company’s diversity performance. We expect the Equality Bill to bring a sea change to UK business.”
 
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