Equality, diversity and inclusion in your workforce

Workplace equality, diversity and inclusion covers:

• how you recruit staff
• equal pay and conditions
• promoting and monitoring equality and diversity
• preventing discrimination

It is against the law to discriminate against or harass someone based on their:

• age
• disability
• gender reassignment
• marriage and civil partnership
• pregnancy and maternity 
• race
• religion or belief
• sex
• sexual orientation

These are called ‘protected characteristics’. Protected characteristics are personal traits that cannot be used as a reason to discriminate against someone.

Learn more about protected characteristics on the Equality and Human Rights Commission website.

Defining equality, diversity and inclusion

Equality

Equality means that everyone is treated equally and has an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives and talents. In work, this means that workers and job applicants are treated equally and fairly, regardless of any protected characteristics, reflecting the society in which we live.

Better working terms and conditions can benefit businesses, organisations and society as well as workers. Find out about introducing Fair Work practices across your business.

Diversity

Diversity in the workplace means you work with people from a wide range of different backgrounds and with different personal circumstances. 

Diversity helps to bring a wide range of skills, experiences and perspectives to the workplace. This can help workers to perform better as a team.

Find out more about how a diverse workforce benefits organisations.

The minority ethnic recruitment toolkit includes a range of suggestions and ideas to help improve the diversity of your workforce by recruiting more people from minority ethnic backgrounds.

Access the ethnic minority recruitment toolkit on gov.scot.

Inclusion

Inclusion means offering support to allow people equal access to specific opportunities in work. It ensures that everyone can participate fully in the workplace. 

For example, inclusion can refer to reasonable adjustments so that disabled people or people with health conditions are not disadvantaged when doing their jobs. 

Find out more about reasonable adjustments on GOV.UK.

The Scottish Government’s anti-racist employment strategy includes advice, guidance, examples of good practice and resources to help you make recruitment and progression fairer.

Find out more about the anti-racist employment strategy on gov.scot.

Inclusion can also refer to inclusive communication, which means sharing information in a way that everyone can understand. 

Creating an inclusive workplace may also mean changing your recruitment process so that it is open to more applicants. 

Read the Inclusive recruitment guide for employers on CIPD.

Find out more about recruiting and hiring people.

Find out about workplace equality and diversity on the Business Gateway website.