Equality of opportunity at work (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Leadership and Human Resource Management - Miscellaneous, grade: B-, University of Derby, language: English, abstract: Outline the legislative framework for achieving equality of opportunity at work. Explain the importance of clear policies at the workplace and critically discuss the tensions between policy and practice at the point of recruitment and selection. According to Dickens (2002), statutory individual employment rights have become more
extensive since the election of the Labour Government in 1997. There are more rights,
including in areas earlier unregulated in law in Britain, and the exposure of them has widened
to include people, who used to be excluded from protection. There have been modifications in
the institutions and dispute resolution processes and procedures. Dickens (2002) argues that
an opportunity for an essential reorganisation was missed.
Colgan et al. (2007) report that the academic literature regarding progress in UK organisation
equality and diversity policy and practice has pointed to the gap existing between equality
policy and practice. Evaluation of progress within the UK has shown the weak points of antidiscrimination
legislation and the uneven application over time and within organisations of
arguments based exclusively on the social justice and business cases.
Human Resource International Digest (2006) raises some questions: How do people find a
new position? Do they see it listed at a local employment agency? Perhaps they respond to an
advert in a national newspaper. Maybe it is an old friend from university who gives a useful
tip that that particular company is recruiting and you find yourself qualified for the job. The
journal Human Resource International Digest (2006) suggests that the way a person answers
this question gives a good clue of this person's gender and/or ethnic background. These three
ways to a job application supposed to be the main ones people go through, whereby white
males are much more likely to discover about vacancies with the help of informal friendship
networks. Women and ethnic minority applicants are already disadvantaged before the
application process even begins because the only positions, which are opened to them, are
those that have been publicly advertised. [...]