The Equality Bill is Coming!
The long-awaited Equality Bill has now been published and is well on its way through Parliament. It introduces new laws to help narrow the gender pay gap and strengthens anti-discrimination legislation. The Equality Bill consolidates the numerous pieces of existing discrimination legislation into one Act. It has already provoked a great deal of controversy since it was first unveiled and the Equality Act 2010 will have significant impact on both public and private sector organisations.
The Equality Bill is the most far-reaching discrimination legislation for years: it will allow employers to take further positive action in favour of women and minorities at the recruitment and promotion stage and give wider powers to employment tribunals.
As an example it proposes to ban "gagging clauses" on pay so that workers can compare wages and challenge employers who unlawfully pay them less. Many private sector organisations currently have these secrecy clauses in place for certain job roles where employees are expressly told not to talk about their salary with any of their peers.
The plan to scrap these clauses and become more transparent on men and women's pay is deemed to be the area likely to have the biggest impact overall on employers. Many Human Resources professionals believe that lifting the lid on staff pay will result in a greater number of equal pay claims by employees, however long term there is a sense that this will result in a much fairer and equitable workplace which is far more motivating to be part of.
Another nugget of learning about this legislation is that the Equality Bill will restrict employer's use of pre-employment questionnaires about health or disability during the recruitment process. The amendment means that an employer will be deterred from asking candidates questions about their health until after they have shown they meet some of the non-health criteria of a job. If an employer asks a question before this stage, it may be found to have directly discriminated against a disabled candidate.
However, the Bill gives specific instances where the employer can make health and disability related enquiries before shortlisting a candidate after an interview.
These are for the purposes of:
- Making reasonable adjustments
- Monitoring diversity in applications for jobs
- Supporting positive action in employment for disabled people
- Enabling an employer to identify suitable candidates for a job where there is a genuine occupational requirement for the person to be disabled
- National security vetting
Two Tips on How To Be Ready For this Legislation:
1. Consider if your organisation is secretive about pay rates and ask yourself why? What is there to hide? Can you not have a set of pay bands available for roles in the business that people can recruit and be promoted to?
2. Ensure that interviewers are not asking any health related questions at interview but that they wait until they have decided to offer the job then gather such information. Don’t ask random health questions to candidates. Rather use a template health questionnaire such as this one here.
Article written by
Alyson Pellowe: Managing HR Consultant - People Vision HR
www.pvhr.com
