
The aims of equality and diversity are simple: to ensure that everyone has access to the same opportunities and the same, fair treatment.
Full Answer
Why do you need an equality and diversity policy?
Your equality and diversity policy will help to redress the balance and prevent statistics like these from becoming the norm. ‘Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.’
Why should I care about increasing participant diversity?
Anyone interested in the future of protecting our national parks, open spaces, and environment should care about increasing the participant diversity of those who protect our outdoor spaces. I hope to answer more of the “Why” in subsequent paragraphs. The demographics of the United States continue to change rapidly.
Should nonprofits embrace diversity and equity as organizational values?
We believe that embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion as organizational values is a way to intentionally make space for positive outcomes to flourish, whether in direct services or in the nonprofit capacity building or public policy spheres. We urge each nonprofit to articulate its own values and be guided by them.
Does diversity and equity naturally beget inclusion?
There’s a common misconception that environments in which diversity and equity are priorities naturally beget inclusion. You’ve built equitable practices into your organizational processes, after all, leading to far more diverse, well-represented teams. People have to feel included in a company like this, right?

Why is it important to respect diversity and treat everyone equally?
Promoting equality and respecting diversity help to ensure that people are valued and have the same access to all opportunities whatever their differences. The Act also provides protection for individuals who experience discrimination by association with someone who has a protected characteristic.
Why is it important to promote equality diversity and inclusion?
A workplace encouraging equality, diversity and inclusion can help: make it more successful. keep employees happy and motivated. prevent serious or legal issues arising, such as bullying, harassment and discrimination.
What is the importance of fairness and equality?
It is not only making sure that everyone is treated the same. It encourages, respect, responsibility, leadership, trust and a life that matters. All of these things affect a community. Imagine your community if there was no such thing as fairness or rules.
Why should equality and diversity procedures be followed?
Embracing diversity and providing equality goes a long way in promoting a work culture which values talent beyond stereotypes and helps people reach their potential by contributing their best beyond any prejudice. Moreover, an inclusive workplace fosters better productivity and efficiency.
Why it is important to treat everyone equally be fair and not discriminate against anyone?
Good equality and diversity practices make sure that the services provided to people are fair and accessible to everyone. They ensure that people are treated as equals, that people get the dignity and respect they deserve and that their differences are celebrated.
Why equality diversity and fair treatment are crucial in the workplace and access to jobs?
Equality in the workplace helps brings together workers from all different backgrounds, and puts all perspectives on the table. This promotes intra-company and inter-company networking, boosts morale, and builds cohesive teams focussed on achieving positive results for the company.
What is equal and fair treatment?
Definition. The principle of equal treatment establishes that all people – and in the context of the workplace, all workers – have the right to receive the same treatment and not to be discriminated against on the basis of criteria such as age, disability, nationality, race and religion.
How can we truly treat someone with fairness and equality?
Here are nine important principles to remember about how to treat others:Instead of judging people by their past, stand by them and help them build their future. ... Listen with curiosity, speak with candor, and act with integrity. ... Treat everyone with kindness--not because they are kindhearted, but because you are.More items...•
What is fairness and equality?
Fairness means treating people according to their needs. This does not always mean it will be equal. Equality means treating everyone exactly the same. Understanding fairness and equality goes hand-in-hand with increasing students' tolerance and appreciation for diverse learners.
How equality diversity and fair treatment can benefit the work of the public services?
Equality and Diversity can help organisations work more creatively and innovatory and improve their performance. All public service organisations have to have a range of policies that they follow to ensure they are upholding the highest standards in respecting equality and diversity.
Why is it important to respect diversity?
Diversity increases productivity and collaboration By creating a mutual understanding and respect for everybody's differences, it creates a more open and accepting environment where the whole workforce feels able to contribute something.
What are the benefits of equality and diversity in the workplace?
What Are The Benefits Of Equality And Diversity In The Workplace?Create more positive working relationships. ... Greater productivity within your team. ... Increased performance. ... Appeal to a wider range of customers. ... Brand reputation. ... Attract and retain the best quality employees.
Why we want diversity?
Diversity can bring many benefits to society, the workplace, and communities. Example of the benefits are from [Why Diversity is Important?]: Highe...
Why is Diversity Important in the Workplace?
Increase Marketshare in minority marketsImprove Employee EngagementImprove ProfitEnhance ReputationIncrease ProductivityIncrease Customer Satisfact...
What is diversity in simple words?
Diversity refers to the existence of variations of different characteristics in a group of people such as gender, age, culture, religions. More com...
How to improve Diversity & Inclusion in the workplace?
Diversity Social Diversity Consulting is one of the leading Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Sustainability management consulting firm to turn dive...
What is equality and diversity training?
Our Equality & Diversity Training has been designed to help learners understand more about their responsibilities for promoting equality and diversity in the workplace. It aims to help you promote a fairer, more tolerant and more diverse working environment.
Why is diversity important?
Diversity helps you to develop. Businesses can’t continue to grow if everyone within them thinks the same , acts the same and has the same interests. You can’t choose employees who all fit the same cookie cutter and expect the company to develop in the future.
What is workplace diversity?
Workplace diversity means that your staff members can relate to every one of your customers. If you have a range of people with a range of opinions then it makes it much easier to target a wider range of clients. Diversity attracts workers.
How can Google improve gender diversity?
Search engine giant Google believes that the best way to improve gender diversity in the workplace is to start from the bottom, by employing more women in lower level jobs, rather than at the top and trying to employ women directly into management positions.
Why was the equality act introduced?
The Equality Act was introduced in the UK to eliminate unlawful discrimination, advance equal opportunities and promote good relations between people.
Do we deserve to work in an environment free from discrimination, harassment, victimisation and bullying?
It sounds obvious to state that we all deserve to work in an environment that’s free from discrimination, harassment, victimisation and bullying but, unfortunately, this isn’t always the reality once you start to delve behind the scenes of a business .
Is equality and diversity a topic?
Equality and diversity is a topic that’s relevant for all workplaces, regardless of whether you employ two people or two hundred people, and irrespective of whether you work in an office, a warehouse or on a shop floor.
Why is diversity important in a team?
Having a diverse team means having a wider range of perspectives and skills to help brainstorm, problem solve, and strategize.
Why is it important to hire a diverse team?
Hire a diverse staff. While it may feel more natural to hire team members with similar experiences as your own , hiring a diverse staff is essential to creating a diverse, equal, and inclusive workplace.
What is diversity recruiting software?
Diversity recruiting software can help you design recruiting initiatives that line up with your diversity, equity, and inclusion goals . These tools provide unique features to help remove unconscious bias when recruiting and interviewing. For instance, you can use job description management software to create unbiased job descriptions, or diversity technology to censor personal candidate information like name, age, and ethnicity. You can also post on job boards that promote minority talent.
What does inclusive hiring mean?
Inclusive hiring also means casting a wider net when recruiting. While education and other credentials are known as standard requirements, competitive companies are starting to loosen the baseline requirements to appeal to more diverse candidates. This could mean including historically Black colleges or women’s colleges as acceptable education or offering on-the-job training.
What does inclusion mean in a company?
Inclusion means your company has policies and procedures in place to make sure all individuals feel welcome. Leaders and team members are open-minded and encourage different perspectives. Team members are heard and recognized.
What is equity in business?
Equity means every individual has an equal chance at a professional opportunity. Whether it’s hiring, promoting, or working with high-end clients, all individuals have a shot regardless of gender, race, background, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation.
Why are diverse organizations more aligned with societal demographics?
This means they can better predict and adjust to market changes and changes in consumer behavior.
What is equality and diversity?
Fundamentally, Equality and Diversity are about acknowledging that everybody has a right to fair and equal treatment, irrespective of age, gender, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic. Originally, workplace legislation surrounding these rights were considered something of a ‘grey area’; with around 116 separate laws existing under ...
Why was the equality and diversity act created?
The Equality and Diversity Act was created to simplify, strengthen, and harmonise existing legislation to provide Britain with a new discrimination law ; not only to help protect individuals from inequitable treatment but also to provide and promote a fair and equal society.
What is gender reassignment?
Gender Reassignment: The definition of gender reassignment has been expanded to include people who choose to live as the opposite gender to the gender assigned to them at birth by removing the previous legal requirement for them to have undergone an official medical procedure.
Is veganism a protected characteristic?
To be protected, a belief must satisfy various criteria, including that it is a weight and substantial aspect of human life and behaviour. The law has recently recognised Veganism as a protected characteristic. Sex: Previously referred to as gender. Applies to male or female.
Is a pregnant woman protected from discrimination?
Pregnancy and Maternity (Including breastfeeding mothers): A woman is protected against discrimination on the grounds of pregnancy and maternity. With regard to employment, the woman is protected during the period of her pregnancy and any statutory maternity leave to which she is entitled.
Why do we need diversity?
The fact is that if you want to build teams or organizations capable of innovating, you need diversity. Diversity enhances creativity. It encourages the search for novel information and perspectives, leading to better decision making and problem solving.
How does diversity benefit the workplace?
For example, gender diversity will bring in investment and innovation from different gender; cultural diversity will bring in ideas and traditional wisdom from other cultures; age diversity will bring in experience and problem-solving methods from people with different historical experiences. All these ideas will bring attract different investment because people in a diverse environment understand the needs better.
What is diversity and inclusion?
The Diversity.Social Diversity and Inclusion Best Practice is to intentionally structure your companies based on your target customers. You can’t focus on your customers if you don’t understand how they think. Having a diversity of thinking allows your team to understand and design better customer experience, which leads to better customer satisfaction. Better customer services. A diverse and inclusive workforce can improve customer services. As a matter of fact, a diverse workforce will often mean diverse expertise, talent, experience and capabilities in the employees. If a manager understands the intricacies and complexity of how to manage diversity effectively, he will be able to put the right person into the correct position, by minimizing his weaknesses while enhancing the particular employee’s strength. From this perspective, a diverse workforce enables a manager to choose the correct candidate for a particular position in the organization. For example, someone with a cheering personality and has the ability to build rapport fast with customers can be sent to the customer services department.
What is a diverse workforce?
As a matter of fact, a diverse workforce will often mean diverse expertise, talent, experience and capabilities in the employees.
How does diversity and inclusion affect the world?
Having diversity and inclusion will improve the balance of opinions, views in any setting. A well-balanced world will accept different opinions and reduce fears towards differences. A well-balanced world can also improve the average cultural competency in the society.
What is a chief diversity officer?
Sometimes, the Chief Diversity Officers will work with diversity consultants to improve the states and maturity of diversity in the workplace.
Why is diversity important in a team?
A diverse and inclusive team not only gives the companies additional experience and point of views, but it also helps and improve the openness and tolerance of different cultural habits in the same work environment.
What is the role of recruitment in diversity?
Recruitment, in particular, is an essential step in building workplace diversity. This includes close scrutiny of the way you write job descriptions, screen resumes, source talent and conduct candidate interviews.
What is equity in DEI?
Broadly speaking, equity is about safeguarding fairness and impartiality for all people. Organizations with mature DEI programs build equal access to opportunities and advancement, for example, into their operational DNA, from hiring processes to compensation. This might also include a close examination of the external indicators, ...
What is DEI strategy?
As powerful as each of its components are on their own, DEI is about a more comprehensive, “operationalized” strategy. A company committed to elevating DEI initiatives reflects that commitment in its mission, strategies, and business practices. These companies not only protect diversity, equity, and inclusion, but move DEI forward in the name of competitive business advantage.
How does DEI help organizations?
Here are three primary ways that organizations benefit from developing and supporting their DEI programs. 1. It helps businesses attract top talent. The benefits of an organization’s commitment to DEI tend to compound over time. Many develop a magnetic reputation that helps them attract and retain top talent.
What is inclusive work environment?
Typically an inclusive work environment is collaborative, supportive, and respectful. It’s built to increase the participation and contribution of all employees and backed by company structure and policy designed to remove all barriers, discrimination, and intolerance.
Is discrimination expensive?
Workplace discrimination is expensive. Beyond its moral and ethical consequences (doing wrong by your staff, for example, and sending that kind of message to existing and prospective employees), failing to elevate DEI—or enabling outright discrimination—can be very detrimental.
How can an organization create a more equitable environment?
An organization can create a more equitable environment by accommodating the full spectrum of transportation needs, from policies around start times and working hours to stipends for both automobile and public transportation travel. Source: Word of the Day. Merriam-Webster.
How do older generations view diversity?
At the same time, older generations tend to view diversity more through the lens of equal and fair representation. It’s important to remember that diversity is less about what makes people different—their race, socioeconomic status, and so on—and more about understanding, accepting and valuing those differences.
What is inclusion in an organization?
Inclusion is the extent to which various team members, employees, and other people feel a sense of belonging and value within a given organizational setting. The important distinction here is that even among the most diverse teams, there’s not always a feeling of inclusion.
Is diversity a euphemism?
Even with the best intentions, referring to people this way feels a lot like euphemism for “outside the majority,” or “ different from the dominant group.”. This framing of diversity is misleading at best, because it assumes we’re all the same.
Is diversity important for job seekers?
For many job seekers, diverse work environments are a must-have requirement for prospective employers. According to a report from Glassdoor, “67% of job seekers consider workplace diversity an important factor when considering employment opportunities.”.
Practice Pointers
Many organizations find that it’s helpful to begin with an exploration of terms and definitions. This can help spark deep conversations about how we individually interpret and experience discrimination of whatever nature. This Social Justice Glossary from the YWCA and this glossary from the W.K.
Questions to Consider when Creating a DE&I Action Plan for Your Nonprofit
How transparent does your organization wish to be about the steps it is taking to become more diverse and encourage inclusive practices? How does your organization communicate its values to the public, to paid staff, and to volunteers?
Resources for Nonprofit Employers: Building Values into Actions
In their article A Turning Point, Eden Stiffman and Jim Rendon explore how some nonprofits are finding equitable and inclusive ways to navigate shrinking resources in the age of coronavirus ( Chronicle of Philanthropy, no paywall).
Who said there is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people?
“There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.” This quote, attributed to Thomas Jefferson, is often used in gifted education to justify the attention, resources, and opportunities provided to those who are more academically talented than others. It’s intended to connote a sense of fairness, a feeling that not every student should have the same classroom experience. Rather, there should be an emphasis on appropriate instruction, instruction that is responsive to individual needs, interests, and abilities.
Is there an emphasis on appropriate instruction?
Rather, there should be an emphasis on appropriate instruction, instruction that is responsive to individual needs, interests, and abilities. Yet the heat of the college experience often produces an uncomfortable state of tension between what is “equal” and what is “fair.”. Many of us wonder whether both can be achieved simultaneously.
Is it necessary to create instructional materials for minority students?
Yes, it may be less convenient to create instructional materials that meet the needs of a student from a minority culture. Yes, it takes time to adapt a teaching strategy to meet the needs of a student with a lower level of academic preparation.

Surprising Equality and Diversity Statistics
Equality Act 2010 & Protected Characteristics
Improving Diversity in Your Workplace
Benefits of Diversity
Case Studies
Developing An Equality and Diversity Policy