How to Drive Equality at Your Office

By the Careers Desk

Wednesday, June 15, 2023.

Surveys show that around 70% of people are attracted to companies that drive equality in the workplace when looking for a job. This is always an ongoing process and sometimes can take a while to get right. There are also things such as out of touch sentiments that can make your business bad to work for. If you aren’t sure, here are some quick steps you can take.

Provide Facilities for Dignity

Everyone has the right to certain dignity in life. And your office or workplace should provide as much as possible to ensure it is as diverse and inclusive as possible. For example, female incontinence is well known. But this issue also affects men. You can hire services like PHS to assess your current washroom facilities. Wheelchair access, transgender facilities, and safe rooms for people with epilepsy and other similar conditions are great steps in the right direction.

Train Employees in Inclusion

If you want to manage diversity at work, training is essential. It can help make your employees aware of common workplace issues, which engages your workplace policies against bullying and harassment. Some offices have a “no bystander” policy which gives employees the power to act when they witness discrimination. This can help employees of specific groups feel more included and protected, such as ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ staff, and older employees.

Drive Equality with Broader Hiring

The same old hiring practices have been used for a very long time. For example, you still see phrases like “recent graduate” in job descriptions. This is highly unfair and segments older people from applying. It also prevents some people who could do the job just as well, if not better. It’s also helpful to hire employees from broader media. For example, it isn’t fair to only place ads for hair styling in women’s magazines when there are many men who can do the job.

Measure Representation

You can’t really make changes without the data you need to act. Some things to look at include promotions, salaries, and employee retention. You can use this data to highlight unintentional or even intentional bias in your workplace. For instance, there is almost definitely something wrong if none or a very small amount of senior staff are of specific ethnicities, female or LGBTQ+. This doesn’t necessarily mean something is malicious, but your policies may be a little out of touch.

Review and Amend Workplace Policies

Further to policies, you need to review and amend these in order to put them into practice. Policies are generally incorporated into your workplace procedures based on biases, conduct, and expectations of the time. Therefore, they require regular review. As you have seen, things can change very quickly. Some common modern policies include zero tolerance against the abuse of position, equal representation, and disciplinary action against workplace harassment.

Summary

You can drive equality at your business for overall safety and better company culture. Some ways include providing adequate facilities, changing hiring practices, and reviewing policies. You can also ask your staff about what they think, feel, and experience on a day-to-day basis.