Newsletter – December 2023
Happy holidays everyone and welcome back to our final newsletter for 2023! We hope you are all keeping warm over the holiday period and looking forward to spending some time with family (or not, if you’re really lucky!). This week we’re taking a short look at the changes to the Equality Act, discriminatory hiring practices, and swearing at millions of people!
For anyone that missed our November newsletter, you can find that here. In there, we looked at upcoming changes to the National Minimum Wage, and a survey on working from home.
Upcoming Amendment to the Equality Act
Moving into the new year we will have some amendments to the Equality Act 2010.
The first of these will come into force on 1 Jan (Happy New Year, by the way), which will seek to retain existing EU law in line with the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023. The primary areas relate to pregnancy, maternity, and breastfeeding, indirect discrimination, access to employment, and comparators for equal pay claims. With the intention being that we are only keeping the law as it stands already, there shouldn’t be any changes that fall into place unexpectedly.
Where a change is being made, however, is to the sexual harassment section of the Equality Act in light of some recent high profile allegations. For those of you that joined us for Les’s seminar in November, you will already be aware of the content of the changes. For those of you who couldn’t make it – the bill was initially introduced as a means to prevent employees being harassed by third parties, introduce a duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment, and create an uplift of 25% on claims where said duty was not fulfilled. After much concern about how the protection from third party harassment would operate, it was removed from the bill prior to becoming law. However, the duty to prevent sexual harassment for employers and the uplift were signed into law on 26 October and will commence on the same day in 2024.
Aviva – Over Correction?
On 13 December a Parliamentary Committee was held on ‘champions of female representation in financial services to give evidence on Sexism in the City’, which saw Amanda Blanc, Aviva’s CEO, give statements to the committee tasked with identifying gender pay gaps and what progress needs to be made in the Financial Services industry.
In a troubling statement Ms Blanc stated that there were ‘no non-diverse hires at Aviva without it being signed off by me and the chief people officer’. This was done ‘not because I don’t trust my team, but I want to make sure that the process followed for that recruitment has been diverse, has been properly done and is not just a phone call to a mate saying ‘would you like a job, pop up and we’ll fix it up for you’. Now, a reasonable question here could be whether this is simply the procedure for all senior hires, which was the topic at the time, not just the ones considered ‘non-diverse’. However, this was not the case and it was understood that non-diverse hires only, would be subject to the additional checks.
While it is not possible for claims to be brought except by someone who could show they were turned away on this basis, less favourable hiring practices on the grounds of a protected characteristic could leave the company facing claims for discrimination. Given the recent claims against the Royal Air Force on a similar basis, ensuring that recruitment practices are fair and produces suitable candidates is vital.
Lighter Side of the News – Newsreader Caught Flipping the Bird
As I am sure you will all of heard about, or possibly watched live, a BBC presenter caught holding up her middle finger to the camera earlier this month. The moment was reported widely as many BBC viewers were greeted to the news by Maryam Moshiri flipping them the bird right before the news started.
In the since released full footage, which confirms the statements released beforehand, Maryam can be seen counting down from 10 as she is being broadcast live on air. The unfortunate moment, meant only for friends in the studio, was caught on camera and broadcast to around 300 million people!
While it has been mostly taken in good humour, it is important to one’s professional image to remain straight faced. Although weather reporter Tom Schafernaker, who was also caught swearing live on camera, was much popular after the event! So maybe being authentic and human every so often can work wonders.
