Equality, Diversity and Discrimination Awareness
Prejudices give rise to discrimination because the judgments we make are flawed and false, leading us to favour others simply because they appear to match a more positive stereotype in our minds. We are also prone to making unfair judgments of others without being aware of it. The is known as unconscious bias. It isn’t just individuals who can fall into this trap and make wrong or discriminatory judgments. The problem can afflict whole organisations giving rise to institutional discrimination. The knowledge provided in this course will help with the implement of an effective “Equality and Diversity” policy. For management and staff it:
- Gives a deeper understanding of the Equality Act, 2010, and its implications on how companies conduct business
- Gives the company a set of principles and guidelines
- Encourages even the most enlightened to challenge the beliefs
- Encourages open feedback which allows people to acknowledge and address their own unconscious bias.
The course defines the nine characteristics the act protects: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation and gives direction on how to recognize implicit (or accepted) bias which damages opportunities due to unintentional, negative attitudes towards someone with a protected characteristic.
Equality and Diversity: Fairness at Work
From a business perspective, it makes sense to implement an effective “Equality and Diversity” policy. To have the ability to implement a meaningful policy, management need to understand what discrimination is and how to recognize the signs of both conscious and unconscious bias. This will create a better work environment for everyone, fostering innovation which enables the business to draw resources from a very wide base of staff outlooks and experiences and, in turn, having a greater understanding of customer needs.
Creating a fairer working environment where everyone believes their opportunities are based on their contributions to the company, sends a clear message to employees and customers about how the company works. It is more likely to attract, and keep, high performing people who work hard to see the company succeed.
Origins of Bias
We’re all a product of our upbringing. The four key influences that we encounter during childhood include parents, teachers, our peers, and the media. In any culture, these key influencers tend to reinforce one another through a medium of tradition, shared values and even common sense. We often grow up in a kind of sophisticated echo chamber, where we replay what we’ve been told and have it repeated back to us by every authoritative body we encounter, some of which can run counter to the principles of equality and diversity.
Because the issue of discrimination is rooted in shared value structures that are received, passed on and not scrutinized, certain types of organisations and hierarchies can be especially prone to institutional discrimination.
Institutional Discrimination
With institutional discrimination, there is often no evil intent, but still institutional discrimination can exclude and treat people less equally. So the intent and the effect may differ. Where an institution maintains prejudicial arrangements, discrimination can and does occur. Institutional discrimination can be seen in policies, procedures, practices and processes.
There are three types of collusion, silence, denial, and active cooperation. Silence is the most common. By saying nothing when people tell jokes, exclude others or exhibit other inappropriate behaviour, we reinforce the status quo, so people must feel able to speak up. Denial is a more active stance that says, No inequalities exist here. Often people who participate in collusion by denial are avoiding the painful prospect that inequality and discrimination do exist, perhaps because they feel they have something to lose by acknowledging it.
The Equality Act 2010
The Equality Act 2010 replaced nine separate pieces of anti discrimination legislation which are details in the course.
The law can’t tell us what we should think. The law is only concerned with behaviour. The law does tell us what we should do. Being aware of any potential clashes between our values and beliefs and those of the organisation we work for helps us to choose our approach. For the sake of equality and diversity, we should try to become aware of any unconscious bias we hold in our values and beliefs, and especially any prejudices that we hold that could lead to discriminatory behaviour.
Its four chief aims of the Equality Act 2010 are
- to update and amend existing laws
- to create a new single equality duty on public bodies
- to extend the scope for positive action with new provisions for positive discrimination, and
- to support equal pay between men and women by banning secrecy clauses and introducing compulsory pay reporting.
| Course Content | Module |
| What is equality & diversity? | 1 |
| Equality and Diversity legislation | 2 |
| What do we mean by discrimination? | 3 |
| Promoting diversity | 4 |
| Links between values, attitudes and beliefs | 5 |
| Stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination | 6 |
| Institutional discrimination | 7 |
| Valuing others | 8 |
| Resistance to feedback | 9 |
| Course summary | 10 |
Equality, Diversity and Discrimination
CPD Units ‘2’
Course Assessment
Online assessment for this equality, diversity and inclusion training is carried out by a series of multiple choice questions. Candidates must answer 70% of the questions correctly to pass each module. We advise you to complete each module and answer the question before moving on to the next module. This provides a better learning experience because you will need to have knowledge from earlier modules to understand some of the material in the later modules. For those who complete the course successfully, a PDF certificate of the award is sent directly to your inbox. Hard copies of the award are available on request. The course takes 70 minutes of training to complete. This is course content only and does not cover the time it takes to answer questions.
Other related courses to equality and diversity training include:
Introduction to Emotional Intelligence
Developing Teamwork