The Company is committed to a policy of treating both you and all job applicants equally.

 You will not receive less favourable treatment or consideration on the ground of race, colour, religion or belief, nationality, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender, age, disability, trade union membership, marital status or part-time status nor will you be disadvantaged by any conditions of employment that cannot be justified as necessary on operational grounds.

You have personal responsibility for the practical application of the Company’s Equal Opportunities Policy, which extends to the treatment of job applicants, employees, customers and visitors.

You are responsible for making sure that the Equal Opportunities Policy is applied in our recruitment, selection, promotion and training.

The Company’s grievance procedure is available to you if you believe you may have been unfairly discriminated against. You will not be victimised in any way for making a genuine complaint. Complaints of this nature will be dealt with seriously, in confidence and as quickly as possible.

Disciplinary action will be taken against you if you are found to have committed an act of unlawful discrimination. Serious breaches of this policy and serious incidents of harassment will be treated as gross misconduct. Allegations of discrimination, which are not made genuinely, will also be considered as a disciplinary matter. The Company will keep confidential records about any such matters.

What is Discrimination?

“Discrimination” occurs when decisions regarding employment, advancement and/or remuneration are wholly or partly based on age, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins, sex (including gender reassignment), marital status, disability, sexual orientation, religion, religious or philosophical belief (Discriminatory Grounds).

Discrimination can take the following forms:

Direct Discrimination

Direct discrimination occurs where you are put at a disadvantage or suffer less favourable treatment on discriminatory grounds in relation to your employment. Direct discrimination may even occur unintentionally.

In the case of a disability it may also be discriminatory to fail or refuse to make reasonable adjustments to premises or workstations or to your role/duties to ensure that any disadvantage suffered by reason of that disability is avoided or minimised.

Indirect Discrimination

Indirect discrimination occurs where an apparently neutral policy, condition or requirement is applied to everyone, but which in practice has a disproportionately adverse affect on one particular group of staff on discriminatory grounds.

Victimisation

Victimisation occurs where an individual is treated less favourably or suffers a detriment because he/she has made a complaint or assisted someone else in making a complaint of discrimination or harassment on discriminatory grounds.

Harassment

Harassment is any unwanted conduct, based on discriminatory grounds, affecting the dignity of a person or creating a humiliating, hostile or intimidating environment for that person. This does not include occasional compliments, traditional politeness and socially acceptable behaviour.

Equal Opportunities Code of Practice

The Company is committed to making full use of your talents and resources and to providing a healthy environment that will encourage good and productive working operations. This code of practice describes how the policy is to be applied.

Recruitment and selection

The following principles will apply whenever recruitment or selection for positions takes place:

You will be assessed according to your personal capability to carry out a given job;

• No assumptions will be made that only certain types of person will be able to perform certain types of work;
• Any qualifications or requirements applied to a job which have or may have the effect of discouraging certain applications will only be kept in place if they can be justified in terms of the job to be done;
• Any age limits applied to a job will only be retained if they can be justified in terms of the job to be done;
• Recruitment by word of mouth will be avoided if its effect is or may be to prevent certain types of person from applying;
• Selection tests will be related specifically to job requirements and will measure the individual's actual or inherent ability to do or train for the job;
• Selection tests will be reviewed regularly to ensure they remain relevant and free from any unjustifiable bias, either in content or in scoring mechanism;
• Applications from all individuals will be processed in the same way;
• Written records of interviews and reasons for appointment and non appointment will be kept as far as possible;
• Questions asked will relate to the requirements of the job;
• If it is necessary to assess whether personal circumstances may affect job performance, this will be done objectively without questions or assumptions being made which are based on stereotyped beliefs about certain types of person;
• Where the Company’s arrangements for recruitment and selection put disabled people at a substantial disadvantage due to a reason connected with their disability, reasonable adjustments to the arrangements will be made to eliminate, or if that is not reasonably practicable, reduce the disadvantage unless this can be objectively justified;
• No final decisions regarding recruitment or selection will be made by a person who has not read and understood this policy.

Promotion, Transfer and Training

The following principles will apply to appointments for promotion, transfer and training:

• Assessment criteria and appraisal schemes will be carefully examined to ensure that they are not unlawfully discriminatory;
• Assessment criteria and appraisal schemes will be monitored and, where such criteria or schemes result in predominantly one group of workers gaining access to promotion, transfer or training, they will be checked to make sure this is not due to any hidden or indirect discrimination;
• Promotion and career development patterns will be monitored to ensure that access to promotion and career development opportunities in particular groups of workers are not unjustifiably being excluded;
• Traditional qualifications and requirements for promotion, transfer and training, such as length of service and age, which may discriminate against certain groups of workers, will be reviewed and will only continue to be applied if genuinely justified;
• Policies and practices regarding selection for training, day release and personal development will be followed in such a way to avoid an imbalance in training between groups of workers unless this is objectively justified;
• Where the Company’s arrangements in relation to promotion, transfer or training put disabled workers at a substantial disadvantage for a reason connected with their disability, reasonable adjustments to the arrangements will be made to eliminate or, if that is not reasonably practicable reduce, the disadvantage unless objectively justified.

 

Terms of Employment, Benefits, Facilities and Services

The following principles shall apply to terms of employment, benefits, facilities and services:

• The terms of employment, benefits, facilities and services available to you will be reviewed regularly to ensure that they are provided in a way which is free from unlawful discrimination;
• Part-time workers will receive pay, benefits, facilities and services on a pro-rata basis to their full-time comparator unless otherwise objectively justified;
• Where the Company’s arrangements relating to terms of employment, benefits, facilities and services put disabled workers at a substantial disadvantage due to a reason connected with their disability, reasonable adjustments to the arrangements will be made to eliminate or, if that is not reasonably practicable, reduce the disadvantage unless otherwise objectively justified;
• Pay and bonus criteria, policies and arrangements will be carefully examined and monitored, and if it appears that any group of workers is disadvantaged by them, they will be reviewed.

Grievances, Disciplinary Procedures, Dismissals and Redundancies

If you bring a genuine grievance (or assist someone else to do so) either under this policy or otherwise in relation to an equal opportunities matter, you will not be disciplined, dismissed or otherwise victimised for having done so.

No group of workers will be disciplined or dismissed for performance or behaviour which would be overlooked or condoned in another group, unless there is a genuine and lawful justification.

Redundancy criteria and procedures will be examined carefully to ensure that they do not operate in an unlawfully discriminatory manner.

The provision of voluntary redundancy benefits will be equally available to all workers concerned unless there is a genuine and lawful justification for doing so otherwise.