Equality of opportunity at work

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Leadership and Human Resources - 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. [...]