Equal Opportunities Policy

Code of Practice for Employment Purposes

This Code of Practice outlines the main objectives of Carter Ceilings Limited, equal opportunity programme for its employees.

Our aims are:

No job applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment than another on the grounds of sex, race, sexual orientation, marital status or disability.
No applicant or employee is placed at a disadvantage by requirements or conditions, which have a disproportionately adverse effect on his or her racial, sexual or disable group and which cannot be shown to be justifiable on grounds other than race, sex or disability.
Any qualifications or requirements applied to a job which effectively restrict it to applicants of one sex or to single people, should be kept only if they are justifiable in terms of the job to be done.
Where appropriate and permissible, employees are given special training and encouragement to achieve equal opportunity within the organisation.
Any age limits should be kept only if they are imposed by statute or are necessary for the job. Any unjustifiable upper age limit could constitute unlawful indirect discrimination, for example, against women who have taken time out of employment for child-rearing.
Each individual should be assessed according to his or her capability to carry out a given job. It should not be assumed that men only or women only will be able to do certain kinds of work.

Our responsibility as employers are

To make sure that all employees and job applicants know the policy and to take appropriate action in accordance with established procedures against employees who are found to infringe it.
To provide guidance for everyone, particularly relevant decision-makers, to make sure that they understand their responsibilities under the law.
To examine and regularly review existing procedures and criteria and change them where they are found to be actually or potentially discriminatory.
To monitor the composition of the workforce by sex, ethnic origin and disability and of job applicants on a regular basis, in order to evaluate the progress of policy.
To draw up positive action policies to put right existing imbalances.
To inform our employees of their responsibilities and opportunities under the equal rights legislation and the policy.

What we expect from our employees

Individual employees at all levels have responsibilities in implementing the Equal Opportunity Policy. Getting rid of discrimination depends as much on them as on management.

Employees should co-operate with measures introduced by management to make sure there is equal opportunity and no discrimination.
Employees must not themselves discriminate, for example as supervisors or as persons responsible for selection decisions in recruitment promotion or training or in relation to colleagues or prospective employees.
Employees must not induce or attempt to induce other employees or unions or management to practise unlawful discrimination, for example by refusing to accept employees from particular racial groups, by refusing to work with an ethnic minority, woman or disabled supervisor: or by seeking formal agreements which would adversely affect women, disabled people or members of the ethnic minority groups on racial grounds.
Employees must draw the attention of management to suspected discriminatory acts or practices.
Employees must not victimise or attempt to victimise individuals on the grounds that they have made complaints or provided information about discrimination on the grounds of disability, sex or race.
Employees should not harass, abuse or intimidate other employees.
Where employees in positions of authority in the course of their employment commit such incidents, this is considered as a particularly serious offence and will render the employee liable for disciplinary action.

Unlawful Discrimination (Race Relations Act 1976)

The Race relations Act 1976 makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person, directly or indire c tly, in the field of employment.

Direct Discrimination consists of treating a person, on racial grounds, less favourably than others are or would be treated in the same circumstances.

Indirect discrimination consists of applying in any circumstances covered by the Act a requirement or condition which, intentionally or not, has a disproportionately adverse effect on a particular racial group and cannot be shown to be justifiable on other than racial grounds.

Racial grounds are grounds of race, colour or nationality (citizenship or ethnic or national origins) and groups defined by reference to these grounds are referred to as racial groups.

Sex Discrimination (Sex Discrimination Act 1975 & 1986)

Direct sex discrimination occurs where a person of one sex is treated less favourably, on grounds of sex, than a person of the other sex would be in the same or not materially different circumstances.

Indirect sex discrimination can occur where a requirement or condition is applied equally to men and women. Such a requirement or condition may nevertheless discriminate directly because the proportion of one sex, which can comply with it, is much smaller than the proportion of the other sex which can comply with it.

Marriage discrimination occurs where a married person is treated less favourably, on grounds of marital status, than an unmarried person of the same sex would be in the same or not materially different circumstances (this may be direct or indirect).

Victimisation

Victimisation occurs where a person is treated less favourably than other persons are or would be treated because she/he has done something by reference to the Equal Pay Act, the Sex Discrimination Act, or the Race Relations Act.

Victimisation also consists of taking action against a person for asserting their rights under the Acts.

Disabled Persons

Discrimination occurs where a disabled person is treated less favourably on the grounds of his/her disability than a person without a disability would be in the same or not materially different circumstances (this may be direct or indirect).

Grievance, disciplinary and disputes procedure

It is unlawful to discriminate in the operation of grievance, disciplinary, or disputes procedures.

Employees are advised to use the internal procedures where appropriate, although this does not take away any individuals right to bring cases concerning alleged discrimination to an industrial tribunal.

Particular care should be taken to make sure that an employee who has taken action in good faith under the Sex Discrimination Act or the Equal Pay Act or the Race Relations Act does not receive less favourable treatment than other employees.

It should not be assumed that individual women, disabled persons, or members of ethnic minority groups who have complaints are oversensitive about discrimination, nor should their grievances be treated lightly or ignored.

Where it has been found that allegations have substance, subsequent disciplinary action may be taken against any member(s) of staff accused of discriminatory practice or action.

In all grievance and disciplinary cases involving equal opportunities the management must be informed at an early stage.

Discrimination is actions which have the effect of treating employees less favourably on the grounds of disability, sex, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins, marital status, sexual orientation, age, trade union, political or religious belief.

Sexual harassment is, for disciplinary purposes, defined as repeated unreciprocated and unwelcome comment, looks, actions, suggestions, or physical contact that is found objectionable and offensive and that might threaten an employee’s job security or create an intimidating work environment.

Racial harassment is, for disciplinary purposes, defined as an act or series of actions directed towards someone because of his/her race or colour. It includes verbal abuse, comments, attacks, or threats of attack on people or their property which are found objectionable and which might threaten an employee’s job security or create an intimidating work environment.

Dismissals and redundancies

It is unlawful to discriminate on grounds of sex, disability, race or marital status, directly or indirectly, in dismissals or in the application of any other detriment, such as redundancies. In particular it is unlawful to dismiss female employees on the grounds of pregnancy.

Carter Ceilings Limited`s , procedures therefore continually aim to make sure that:

Care is taken that members of one sex, or a particular ethnic minority group are not dismissed for performance or behaviour which is overlooked or condoned in the other sex or another group, or for having taken action under the Equal Pay Act or Sex Discrimination Act.
Conditions of access to redundancy schemes should be made available on equal terms to all male and female employees.
Where there is temporary over-filling of a post, re-deployment should not discriminate on grounds of race, sex, disability or marital status.

Progress monitoring

It is Company policy to monitor the equal opportunities aspect of the recruitment, training and promotion process.

Information will be recorded and be used to monitor all aspects of recruitment, training and promotion.

Procedures have been set up to monitor the following areas

the ethnic, sexual and disabled composition of the workforce of each job category, and changes in the distribution over a period of time.
the numbers and proportions selected for recruitment, promotion and training, according to sex, disablement and racial group of candidates.
the number and nature of reported grievances and disciplinaries.
the proportion of take up of training opportunities by ethnic origin sex and disability.

Monitoring in this way will discover, for example, whether individuals from disadvantaged groups do not apply for employment or promotion, or that fewer apply than might be expected; whither they are not recruited or promoted at all, or are appointed in a significantly lower proportion than their rate of application.

It will reveal whither they are under-represented in training or in jobs carrying higher pay, status or authority.

If any such matters are identified, the reasons will be investigated. If direct or indirect discrimination is found, appropriate and necessary steps will be taken to remedy the situation.

Good employment practices

Discrimination in recruitment

It is unlawful for an employer to discriminate when recruiting employees in any of these ways:

In the arrangements made for deciding who should be offered a job. Examples might be the instructions given to management or advertising a job in a place where only one sex would have the opportunity of seeing the advertisement.

In relation to any terms offered (for instance, in respect of pay or holidays.) For example it is unlawful to offer a job (whether or not the candidate accepts it), where the terms would be a breach of the Equal Pay Act.

By refusing or deliberately omitting to offer a person employment on the grounds of sex or marital status, for example, by rejecting the application or deliberately refusing consideration of an application.

As it is unlawful to restrict unnecessarily fields of applicants, it is essential that the company make its employment opportunities available to the widest possible range of applicants.

Job description and person specification

It is important to the applicant that the requirements of the job are clearly outlined in an accurate job description and person specification agreed with the management.

This reduces the possibility of direct or indirect discrimination occurring at any stage of the selection procedure and makes sure of a clear and justifiable basis for future selection decisions.

Applications

The criteria for initial selection must be consistently applied to all applicants.

The application form should not be used as a test of literacy unless a high standard of literacy is a genuine requirement of the job in which case this will have been predetermined at the Personnel Specification stage.

Where academic qualifications are one of the criteria for initial selection, these should not be unnecessarily high for the particular job. Assumptions must not be made about the standard of overseas qualifications.

There should be no artificial restrictions on the numbers from any disadvantaged group when shortlisting. The adoption of quotas (except in the case of disabled people) is both unlawful and unnecessary.

Reasons for rejection or short listing must be recorded.

Promotion

When selecting internally, care should be taken not to perpetuate past discriminatory practices; for example, by continually selecting or promoting in a section hitherto staffed by men where an equally suitable female candidate is available.

Vacancies will be appropriately publicised to make sure that employees have full access to information about promotion opportunities.

Promotion and staff development matters are reviewed to make sure that the traditional qualifications for promotion are justifiable in relation to the job to be done. Promotion on the basis of length of service alone could amount to unlawful indirect discrimination, as it could for example, operate against women and members of ethnic minorities.

Where general aptitude is the main requirement, promotion criteria should be wide enough to allow the inclusion of candidates whose training and experience may be traditional to their sex.

Training

The Equal Opportunity Policy is applied within the Training programme and aims to eliminate actual or potential inequalities in the opportunities available to staff to develop skills relevant to their jobs and to develop their careers within the industry. To take those steps necessary to inform all staff of existing training opportunities which enable them to develop their careers fully.

CARTER CEILINGS LIMITED

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