With much of the world learning to focus more on equality for all, it’s no surprise that businesses are giving themselves a self-evaluation. According to an article on EqualPay.com, women, in general, are being paid 20% less than men on average. A business should be a mirror image that accurately represents the community that it lives in. Ensuring that a company is fine-tuned in their equality practices not only impresses the employees, but it is also important to many customers. People like to know that the foundation of a company reflects humanity, kindness, and none discrimination. This creates customer loyalty and good referrals. Here are some of the ways that businesses audit their equality practices.
Be Proactive
Fortunately, it is much more common than it was just 20 years ago to be inclusive in different workspaces. That being said, it’s important to be proactive and not let yourself blindly follow the rules if you think they are wrong. Ask questions and stand up to the policies that you feel are biased or create divisions in the company because this is the only way to ensure that everyone is being treated equally. Sometimes policies are so outdated that they are unintentionally biased.
Put Equality Policies in Place
It helps to take a look at current policies and see which ones are outdated and not so inclusive. Much like a company gets economic consulting to evaluate their productivity, profits, and future forecast, similar auditing should be done to get a closer look at their equality practices. Check for signs of pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment, and employee rejection and look for ways on how to resolve or avoid it.
If there aren’t any good policies in place, they should be modified or rewritten.
Check Your Language
Look through company literature and see if there’s anything written in a way that could be misinterpreted as discriminatory. Something that may be unintentionally biased and put on official business documents can always be rewritten to be more inclusive. For example, a policy that states all employees must have short hair or be clean-cut could exclude people who don’t fit into those categories for religious reasons.
Clearly Be Objective with Criteria
When promoting a person to a higher paying position or recruiting for a new department, make sure that your criteria are based on merit and skillset. Be able to back up your choices for why someone was given that bonus, and have a definitive reason related to the job for why someone was picked for a project over their coworker. If there is concern surrounding a particular team or group, encourage audits and group decision making.
Get Legal Advice If Needed
If your policy writer is unpolished in the equality department, it’s perfectly acceptable to hire a legal writer to ensure that your company doesn’t have any unconscious bias in its policies. It can also be helpful to have another set of eyes on your termination policy, as sometimes people who are fired for performance reasons feel that it was due to their looks or belief system. From a company standpoint, having an expert on equality look over their material also avoids unnecessary lawsuits.