Under the Equality Act of 2010, no changes have been made to direct discrimination, associative discrimination, discrimination by perception, and indirect discrimination for race, religion, or belief. There have been some changes to the protected characteristics of race, religion, or belief under harassment and victimisation. An addition to the harassment discrimination area is harassment by a third party. Under this characteristic, employers may be liable for harassment of their staff by people whom they do not employ.
It has been made unlawful to discriminate against anyone who is seeking work, is in employment, or is a trainee on grounds of race, colour, nationality, and ethnic or national origins so to stop this happening in your organisation, as an employer you will need policies that are designed to stop discrimination in the following areas:
- recruitment and selection, which includes pay levels;
- selection for promotion;
- training and development;
- discipline and grievances; and
- bullying and harassment;
Taking race, religion, and belief separately makes it a little easier to understand. Race discrimination may occur when someone is treated less favourably because of race, colour, ethnic, or national origin and nationality.
There is just a little too much to cover here, but I really would encourage you to read the full article
here, so that you understand what this means to you.
