HR Director Oct 08
As the new Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) approaches its first anniversary, Elin Pinnell partner at Capital Law examines what the body has achieved since its inception and explores how far there is still to go to achieve true equality in the workplace.
It is not easy to assess the impact of a body like the CEHR, especially after it has experienced just 12 months of working within the complex and often highly-charged arena of discrimination law. In reality, it was always going to struggle to establish a presence as the sole champion of equality and human rights, where bodies like the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), Campaign for Racial Equality (CRE) and Disability Rights Commission (DRC) had each made positive progress over a number of years.
As a single body, the challenge for CEHR is to send a consistent message to employers and employees when the impact and implications of different types of discrimination varies from one arena to the next and different groups are not all granted a similar level of protection.
Disabled workers, for instance, are protected in a completely different way from racial groups. While businesses have to adjust working practices and environments to ensure disabled workers are not at a disadvantage, there is still a point where they can potentially turn around and say, ‘We have done all that we can but your disability is such that we cannot employ you to do this job.”
Then there are the pregnancy and maternity leave issues which are governed by another set of rules and regulations and all this means that where the new commission was meant to simplify and strengthen this area of law, the danger lies in being sucked into debates about minutiae and losing sight of what it and the Equality Bill are trying to achieve.
Shaping future legislation is one area in which the CEHR should carry more weight than the former single-stream commissions. However, it is also fair to say that the separate bodies had more of a direct impact on the law in practice; getting involved in the funding of specific cases, dealing with solicitors and advising employees at facilitated meetings through local representatives. A welcome by-product of this involvement was that the equality bodies could see at first hand the daily issues and costs facing employers in ensuring that they comply with ever-changing discrimination legislation.
It is not overly dramatic to suggest that the extra financial burden of meeting discrimination legislation is putting significant pressure on businesses already faced with spiralling energy costs and the credit crunch. In some cases, this pressure is provoking extreme measures by employers to avoid wandering into what they feel could be a legal minefield – something that has been put into the spotlight through the extension of statutory maternity rights to a full year.
CEHR Chief Executive Nicola Brewer recently described as “an inconvenient truth”, the suggestion that employers are thinking twice about offering jobs or promotion to women of child-bearing age. Brewer’s comments demonstrate that tackling employers from the Sir Alan Sugar school of HR will continue to be a key objective for the new Commission but that it aims to do so with an understanding of the realities of business – something that will help it to win greater credibility.
Encouraging employers to explore the positive benefits of diversity in the workplace is arguably one of the most difficult areas that the CEHR needs to address but it is also an arena in which real progress can be made. An online guide to recruitment and job advertising and the CBI and TUC’s recent report on the business benefits of diversity - Talent not Tokenism - are steps in the right direction.
“A lot done, a lot to do” was the title of the final report by the CRE before its integration but still seems very apt for the CEHR one year on. Getting closer to the issues faced by employers may well be in the plans of the new commission, but it would be encouraging to see this happening sooner rather than later. The CEHR undoubtedly faces a huge challenge in facilitating real equality in the workplace – something which can only be achieved once organisations recognise the issues and change their cultures. Inevitably, this will need to involve both carrot and stick.
For further information please contact Elin Pinnel T: 029 2047 4487 E: e.pinnel@capitallaw.co.uk
The CEHR has the framework within which to make real progress but a level of sensitivity to the needs of employers needs to sit alongside the rights of employees and inform everything that the Commission works to achieve in the years to come.
