Poll: 49% think disability and ethnicity reporting will aid workplace equality

workplace equalityEmployee Benefits poll: 49% of respondents agree that mandatory disability and ethnicity reporting will help tackle potential inequality in the workplace.

A straw poll of www.employeebenefits.co.uk readers, which received 49 responses, also found that 39% of readers feel legislation requiring employers to publish figures on disabled and ethnic minority employees would not have a positive effect on workplace equality. The remaining 12% were undecided.

On 20 August 2018, the Equality and Human Rights Commission published its Measuring and reporting on ethnicity and disability pay gaps report, which proposes all private, voluntary and listed public sector employers with 250 or more employees should be required to monitor and report on ethnicity and disability in recruitment, retention and progression within the workplace by April 2020.

The report also recommends those employers should be obliged to publish a narrative and action plan for workplace equality, including time-bound targets, informed by analysis of the employer’s data on ethnicity and disability.

According to research carried out in conjunction with the report, while 77% of employers believe ensuring workforce diversity is a priority, only 44% record or collect data on whether employees are disabled or not and just 36% do likewise for employee ethnicity.

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A mere 23% collect data on staff pay and progression that can be broken down by ethnicity and disabled and non-disabled staff. A very small proportion of employers (3%) analyse this type of data to explore differences in pay and progression between different ethnicities and disabled and non-disabled staff.

What does your organisation do to support men who wish to embrace more caring responsibilities? Take part in our latest poll to let us know…