Blog
The silent threat of unconscious race discrimination in the workplace
Nadjia Zychowicz
Having a diverse workplace with a culture of inclusivity is now recognised as being a key factor in business performance and success. However, achieving it needs some careful consideration by employers.
We consider below some simple steps employers can take to create an inclusive culture in their workplace which, in turn, fosters diversity.
A major part of fostering a diverse workforce and promoting inclusion is communication. A good starting point in developing that culture is to establish where you are now and that is best done by asking your employees what they think.
This could be done by way of a simple (ideally anonymous) survey, or by way of informal workshops and discussions.What do employees (at all levels) think about the company’s commitment to diversity?Do they feel there is an inclusive culture in the organisation?If not, why not?What, in their view, could be done to improve this?
The results may be uncomfortable, but it will highlight issues and allow you to form a plan of action to tackle them.
If leaders role-model the behaviours of valuing inclusion, demonstrating curiosity and a desire to learn about and understand other cultures, those qualities inevitably filter down to middle management and throughout the organisation.
Examples of behaviours managers can adopt include:
Celebrate the diversity of your workplace and the cultures represented within it. This could be as simple as facilitating and encouraging your employees to share information about their culture and traditions.
For example, if there is a particular cultural festival coming up – such as Chinese New Year – encourage people of that heritage (managers in particular) to talk about what that festival means, its significance, how it is celebrated, etc. This could be in the form of a short lunchtime talk, complimented by information being posted on notice boards, or emails to staff with key information and links to websites providing more information on the topic.
Even something as simple as the CEO sending a message to everyone pointing out a particular festival/significant date and conveying best wishes to staff of that heritage (maybe even in the relevant language – Google Translate is all it takes!) can be very effective in making people feel that they (and their heritage/authentic self) are valued and accepted.
Diversity and inclusion are not simple buzz words, nor is this a concept that can be achieved through a one-off training event (though training is, of course, essential).It is not a simple tick-box exercise, but rather something that is an ongoing process which requires continual commitment and attention to ensure progress is being made. Appreciate this and keep communicating with your employees at regular intervals to gauge how inclusive the culture within your workforce actually is and keep under review whether any other initiatives should be pursued.
Monitor diversity through audits and, if the results reveal a lack of diversity, formulate a plan to deal with this.
Consider signing the Business in the Community’s Race at Work Charter as a way of demonstrating your organisation’s commitment to workplace racial equality. Over 400 companies from a range of sectors and of varying sizes are currently signatories.
Those signing the charter commit to its five points, which include appointing an executive sponsor for race and making it clear that supporting equality in the workplace is the responsibility of all leaders and managers.
Signing the charter would send a clear message of your commitment to racial equality, not only to your workforce but also to the outside world.
Developing an inclusive culture and fostering a diverse workplace is not something that can happen overnight. As we have seen, it is a process and one which requires effort and commitment, particularly from those in positions of leadership. However, it is critical to having an engaged and committed workforce who feel valued and is well worth the investment of time and effort. Let us hope that, this time, these matters remain high on the agenda and result in more inclusive and diverse workplace cultures.
As a firm, we have had many discussions about Black Lives Matter and how we can make a difference to the movement. We wanted to do more than just put out a statement of support, we wanted to take substantive action to address the inequalities faced by Black people and other ethnic minorities. Over the coming weeks, we will be publishing a series of blogs from our varying practice areas highlighting what we are doing, how you can make a difference and shining a light on the issues.
Our Diversity and Inclusion group is working hard with Human Resources and the Management Team to effect change through methods such as training and reviewing recruitment practices. We have implemented a lot of change but we recognise we have more to do and we are always looking to make improvements as a firm. We all have respective roles to play in advocating for issues of inequality and we hope our blogs give you some inspiration as to how you can make a change.
If you would like any further information or advice about the issues explored in this blog, please contact Corinne Aldridge or another member of our employment team.
Corinne is an immensely experienced and highly respected employment lawyer. She advises both employers and senior executives in relation to the full spectrum of employment-related issues. She particularly enjoys dealing with equal opportunities-related issues in the workplace and acting in relation to (often hard-fought) whistleblowing claims.
Özlem is very experienced in giving training talks on topical employment law issues and, as a member of the Employment Lawyers' Association (ELA), has participated in preparing ELA’s response to Government consultations on various issues.
In recent weeks, we have all been witness to the significant consequences of Vladamir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine – on a human and business level. Many financial institutions have shut-down their offices in Moscow with staff being let go or transferred, and there has also been a ripple effect over here in the City with an impact on banking jobs in London.
We were recently excited and grateful to announce that Kingsley Napley was named in Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index 2022 of Top 100 Employers List for LGBTQ+ people. While it is vital for workplaces to commit to inclusion and create a welcoming environment for their LGBTQ+ staff, the annual celebration of Trans Day of Visibility (TDoV) importantly draws attention to the critical need for more meaningful visibility in the media and beyond in order to pave the way for trans liberation in wider society.
Moira Campbell and Jess Rice explain how employers can use flexibility as a way to attract and retain talent and promote workplace inclusivity.
The government made its long-awaited Freedom Day announcement on Monday 21 February 2022 and later the same day the Cabinet Office published its paper Living with Covid. As a result, the legal landscape for employers and employees changed significantly on 24 February 2022. The legal requirement to self-isolate following a positive test was removed. Self-isolation support payments went too. From 24 March, the special provisions for the payment of statutory sick pay for people with Covid-19 will be removed. So is this all good news for employers? Will this help those who have been charged with managing their workplaces through what remains of the pandemic? Does it mean freedom for them, or something less?
The default retirement age of 65 for employees is now only a distant memory, but mandatory retirement ages for LLP members remain common in professional services firms. In practice this can result in surprising and harsh outcomes.
Health secretary Sajid Javid has announced that the government will launch a consultation on removing vaccination as a condition of employment in health and all social care settings. The regulations requiring front line health workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 (Coronavirus) as a condition of employment were due to come into force on 1 April 2022, which meant that unvaccinated staff had until 3 February 2022 to receive their first dose so that they could be fully vaccinated by April.
Few would disagree with the suggestion that, in order to really understand an artwork and the full extent of its cultural resonance, one needs to know something about the artist who made it.
UK law has granted protection for those who raise concerns of potential wrongdoing in the workplace (whistleblowers) since 1999 through the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998.
Our 2022 report provides an overview of our activities and initiatives across the broad spectrum of diversity. It also includes our statistics for gender, ethnicity, and disability, which reflect our aim of creating a workforce that is fully representative of UK society, at all levels of the business.
Nick Ralph looks in detail at recent cases that have stemmed from the pandemic, including a refusal to attend work due to fear of contracting the virus.
One of the most topical issues regarding Covid-19 is that of vaccination and whether it should be mandatory.
Stories regarding big employers such as Citibank in the US mandating vaccination as a condition of employment (“no jab, no job”), the experience of great sports personalities such as Novak Djokovic and the decision of the Supreme Court in the US last week regarding laws mandating vaccination in the private sector, have all brought this issue into the spotlight.
So what is the legal position in the UK?
The UK Government proposals to ban conversion therapy fall short and risk criminalising gender identity counselling services.
On 29 October 2021 the Government launched a consultation on restricting conversion therapy. Although the Government proposals are a step in the right direction, it only limits conversion therapy rather than banning it outright.
Richard Fox and Clodagh Hogan explain the questions people professionals should ask prior to conducting an inquiry into a dispute between employees
Investigations being conducted into workplace disputes have increased recently, possibly partly due to the rise in the number of sexual misconduct in the workplace allegations since the advent of the #MeToo movement.
Planning is key to workplace investigations and, if you are considering carrying out an investigation, ask yourself the following questions at the outset:
Much has been said about the proposed changes to the flexible working regime announced by the Government in its Consultation Paper on 23 September 2021.
It is the cliché that keeps on giving. Uncertainty remains the only certainty in this world of coronavirus and all its mutations.
At the time of writing, the number of cases in the UK of the new coronavirus variant, Omicron (technically, the B.1.1.529 variant), had reached 32. This is likely to increase given the current view among scientists that Omicron may be more infectious than the existing Delta variant of coronavirus and vaccinations less effective against it.
Richard Fox and Georgia Roberts explain why employers dealing with sexual misconduct claims should tread carefully when requiring an NDA to be included in a settlement agreement
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently launched a consultation on proposed amendments to its Listing Rules aimed at improving diversity and inclusion on company boards and executive committees. In particular, they are seeking feedback on proposals to require listed companies to publicly disclose annually whether they meet specific board diversity targets, including in relation to ethnicity, and to publish the composition of their boards and most senior level of executive management. To understand why such proposals are necessary, it is important to consider the current state of ethnic minority representation in UK leadership, why diversity at senior levels is so vitally important and what steps can employers take to improve diversity.
On 10 September 2021 the UK Government launched a Consultation on proposed changes to data protection law with the aim to “create a more pro-growth and pro-innovation data regime, whilst maintaining the UK’s world-leading data protection standards”. The proposals are designed to build on the UK’s existing data protection regime (contained in the General Data Protection Regulation (as it applies in the UK post-Brexit) (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018).
When I became Senior Partner of Kingsley Napley in 2018, I made a very clear pledge to the firm – that I would make it one of my key objectives to increase diverse talent and foster a culture of inclusivity.
Progressive developments in immigration law have become a rare phenomenon, so the Home Office’s new policy – which halves the route to settlement for certain young people who have resided in the UK for more than half of their lives – is welcome news.
In this REACH podcast hosted by Shannett Thompson Partner in Regulatory, Shannett discusses joining the Halo code, the topic of hair discrimination and what hair discrimination means to them with Kingsley Napley employees from across the firm
Listen to the podcastIn this episode, Shannett Thompson and Donna Cummings delve into issues around BAME recruitment.
Listen to the podcastIn this podcast episode of KN BAME Talks for Black History Month 2020, Ash Cooper, IT Director at Kingsley Napley, talks about positive representation and his career in the tech industry.
Listen to the podcastUrban Lawyers works to makes the law more accessible as a career to marginalised groups and improve social mobility and diversity in the legal profession.
View Urban Lawyers CC 2019 siteAttended by KN employees and the Stop and Search Legal Project.
View SSLP's siteKingsley Napley's BAME and LGBTQ & Allies networks hosted a series of talks at London's Arboretum on 16 October 2019. The focus of the event was to open up the conversation about intersectionality, whilst shining a light on the progress of Black History Month in Britain. The speakers were Charles Irvine, Anthony Francis, Debo Nwauzu and Dr S Chelvan.
Drawing from the strength of shared experiences, women around the world have been uniting in common struggles such as sexual and domestic violence, pay inequality, reproductive autonomy and climate change. While great leaps forward have been made and women-led movements have been gaining unprecedented attention and support , minority ethnic women are often left behind as these struggles are compounded with the intersection of their race/ethnicity and gender.
View blog postHolocaust Memorial Day, on 27 January 2020, will mark 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, where more than a million people perished in gas chambers, most of them Jews. The day is internationally marked in remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust and other appalling acts of genocide, including later atrocities in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur, and to recognise that the lessons of the Holocaust are still relevant, especially at a time when racism and extremism is on the rise across Europe.
View blog postOur most recent book is by Nikesh Shukla.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) recently launched a consultation on proposed amendments to its Listing Rules aimed at improving diversity and inclusion on company boards and executive committees. In particular, they are seeking feedback on proposals to require listed companies to publicly disclose annually whether they meet specific board diversity targets, including in relation to ethnicity, and to publish the composition of their boards and most senior level of executive management. To understand why such proposals are necessary, it is important to consider the current state of ethnic minority representation in UK leadership, why diversity at senior levels is so vitally important and what steps can employers take to improve diversity.
View blog postWe welcome views and opinions about the issues raised in this blog. Should you require specific advice in relation to personal circumstances, please use the form on the contact page.
Nadjia Zychowicz
Moira Campbell
Nikola Southern
Skip to content Home About Us Insights Services Contact Accessibility
Share insightLinkedIn Twitter Facebook Email to a friend Print