Avoiding discrimination while preventing illegal working

The Government has published its statutory Code of practice for employers on avoiding unlawful discrimination while preventing illegal working. The Code of practice provides practical guidance on how to avoid illegal discrimination when carrying out right to work checks on employees. 

Although the statutory Code does not of itself impose any legal obligations on employers, an employment tribunal may take the Code into account when determining whether there was discrimination when an employer carried out prevention of illegal working checks. 

The key point in the Code is that employers should have in place and follow clear recruitment practices which treat all applicants fairly and in the same way at each stage of the recruitment process. It states that provided that all applicants are asked, the employer can ask for appropriate documentation to carry out its checks.

The Code is available on the Government website. 

Religion or Belief in the workplace: a guide for employers

Equality & Human Rights Commission has published a guide which employers will find useful in dealing with the expression of religion or belief at work whilst preventing any conflict and legal challenges by employees. The guide will also be helpful to employees in terms of what their rights are to express their religion or belief at work and what assistance they can reasonably expect of their employers in this regard. The guidance follows recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights which confirm that persons who want to undertake a certain practice sufficiently connected with their religion or belief will be protected under European Convention of Human Rights regardless of whether it is a mandatory requirement of their religion. To read the guidance, please visit the Commission's website.

Guidance for small and medium size businesses

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published easy to understand guidance for businesses on how to avoid discrimination and ensure respect for human rights. The aim of the guide is to help smaller businesses acquire understanding of anti-discrimination provisions under the Equality Act 2010 and the human rights law, and gain practical knowledge of how to manage important business challenges and dilemmas.

The guide is available on the Commission's website.

Workplace solutions for disabled people and business

The Equality & Human Rights Commission has published 'The perfect partnership - workplace solutions for disabled people and business' as part of the 'Working Better' series. The report looks at how disabled people can be supported with their ambitions and career development. It offers some sound, simple and low cost solutions for employers to open up work more effectively to disabled people and how to make the most of the abilities and potential of disabled employees. The report is available on the Commission's website.

Third party harassment provisions in the Equality Act 2010 to be repealed

Currently, employers are liable for harassment of their employees by third parties such as clients or customers. Despite the wide discontent with the proposals to repeal these legal provisions expressed via public consultation, the Government has decided to implement those them. For details of consultation and the government’s response, go the Home Office website.