Home working could lead to an increase in prejudice

Posted 4 years ago

According to a study by the Woolf Institute, widespread home working could lead to an increase in racism and prejudice.

They state that workplace relationships are key in breaking misconceptions and by having more people working from home, organisations risk going “back into isolated silos”, according to institute founder Ed Kessler.

Additionally, Kessler has called on ministers in the UK to focus on offices and workplaces for improving community relations.

The survey, conducted by Survation for the Woolf Institute, focuses on interfaith relations and studied 11,701 people and found that 76% of those who work in shared offices were in a setting that is ethnically diverse. Unemployed people are 37% more likely to only have friends from their own ethnic group according to the survey.

It also found that the word ‘Muslim’ appears to trigger more negative sentiment than the word ‘Pakistani’, despite the fact that 90% of people of British Pakistani heritage are Muslim.

The importance of Equality & Diversity in the workplace

The aim of Equality & Diversity is to give everybody a right to fair and equal treatment, irrespective of their age, gender, sexual orientation, or other characteristics.

Originally, workplace legislation surrounding these rights were considered a ‘grey area’; with roughly 116 separate laws existing under ‘equality and diversity’. However, In October 2010, these were merged into one act: The Equality Act 2010.

The Equality Act 2010 legally protects people from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society.

It replaced previous anti-discrimination laws with a single Act, making the law easier to understand and strengthening protection in some situations. It sets out the different ways in which it’s unlawful to treat someone.

GOV.uk

So, whether you are an employer, employee, or any other person, we all have a moral and legal responsibility to treat people fairly and with respect, no matter what their differences may be.

Training for Workplaces

Here at iHasco, we offer courses that can help staff understand the positive effects of equality and inclusion and how to behave appropriately in the workplace.

Our Equality & Diversity Training course helps learners to understand what is considered unacceptable behaviour in the eyes of The Equality Act 2010, including discrimination, harassment, pejudice, and victimisation.

The course takes a look at all of the protected characteristics under the act and explains why it is illegal to discriminate against someone because of a protected characteristic.

Additionally, we offer an Online Unconscious Bias Training course that covers biases in the workplace, strategies to reduce bias, and how to encourage employees to to identify and reduce bias right from the outset.

We also offer a version for managers that covers all the topics in the essential course, as well as their responsibility as a manager.

Interested in trying these training courses for free? Fill out the form below to receive your free, no-obligation trial!