Equality Training

Dermot Corrigan explores how companies are meeting the challenge of implementing a more strategic approach to equality and diversity in their workforces.

Irish businesses must put in place structured and intelligent equality and training policies, if they are to keep up with increasing diversity in the workforce and strengthening of equality legislation.

“The challenge is for companies to move on from strategies for equality and diversity that are based on individual goodwill, to a more planned and systematic approach,” said Niall Crowley, CEO of the Equality Authority.

“Central to that is equality and diversity training,” he said. “Traditionally, this training has been seen more in terms of awareness of equality legislation and a positive disposition towards diversity. Both of those are important, but the big jump in equality and diversity training is to develop skills to engage effectively in a diverse workplace, skills that promote equality and manage diversity in a way that is best for the organisation and for employees.”

Crowley said that all businesses in Ireland are required to put in place programmes that ensure that all equality and diversity requirements are met.

“These skills are important in all organisations regardless of size and sector,” said Crowley. “They are key to employee well-being and organisational performance. If we can create a culture that values diversity and makes adjustments for diversity, that is good for business, and good for employees.”

The last decade has seen the introduction of detailed legislation in the equality and diversity areas. The Employment Equality Act 1998 came into force on the 18th October 1999, and was amended on the 25th October 2004 by the Equality Act 2004.

Employers are required to ensure that their equality and diversity policies protect all staff from discrimination related to nine distinct grounds. These grounds are gender, marital status, family status, age, race, religion, disability, sexual orientation and membership of the Traveller community.

While the law has been strengthened, the face of the Irish workforce has also evolved quickly.

“The make-up of the Irish workforce has changed rapidly over the last few years, basically because of increased inward migration into Ireland, in particular from Eastern European countries,” said Phillip Watt, Director of the NCCRI (National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism).

“One in eight of the workforce is now made up of migrant workers and, in certain industries such as hotel and catering, one in five of all workers employed there are from outside Ireland,” said Watt. “Migrant workers coming to Ireland are now an essential component of our developing society.”

Niall Crowley advised that the increase in interest in diversity in the workplace is not solely down to increased immigration.

“We are seeing a growing acknowledgement of the relevance of diversity that has been there and is still there,” he said. “There has been growth in the number of women employed,in the number of families with children where both parents are employed. We see a growing interest in older people staying on in the workplace. Alongside that is the growing awareness of gay and lesbian people in the workplace, as well as people with different religions and people with disabilities. We have a small number of travellers in the Irish workplace as well.”

This more diverse workforce is a great benefit to the Irish economy, said Claire Jones, IBEC Equality Executive.

“There is no doubt that having a diverse workforce is an advantage for a business for very
many reasons,” said Jones. “The primary reason, from a business perspective,is that, if your customers are diverse, it is very helpful if the makeup of your employees is diverse too. Businesses can then understand the needs of people much better than before.”

Crowley commented that having detailed equality and diversity policies in place helps companies to attract and retain the best people and therefore adds to business results.

“In terms of a tight labour market, a focus on equality and diversity enhances retention of employees,” said Crowley. “ESRI research from 2005 showed that companies that have equality policies in place had a very strong link with job satisfaction, organisational commitment and lower stress levels. These are all factors that contribute to better organisational performance.”

Declaring that a company wishes to put in place best practice in the equality and diversity areas is one thing. However, organisations have to equip their staff with knowledge and skills to bring this about. Training is all important.

Crowley said that there are two functions within organisations that require particular attention.

“HR people have to develop skills to be able to protect diversity and promote equality within the organisation,” said Crowley. “Customer service specialists also have to have the skills to be able to provide quality service to diverse customers.”

A wide range of private training companies and individuals offer training programmes for organisations looking to improve their employees’ skills in these areas. Some HR departments also design and implement programmes in-house.

AIB has made a conscious decision to ensure equality and diversity standards are upheld all across its organisation.

“AIB has had an equal opportunities policy long before there was any sort of shortage in
the employment market, at a time when we were recruiting workers who were almost exclusively Irish. Obviously that has changed now, but the policy was there,” said Ger Whelan, Group HR Policy Manager, with AIB. “What we are now doing is we have developed a diversity statement for the whole enterprise.”

“We are focused on looking at what diversity is, in the first place,” said Whelan. “People do not think of other people as being diverse straight away. It is about creating an understanding of what diversity actually is. Given the size of the company that we are, with such an expanding workforce, working across different cultures and different areas, it is ‘best practice’ to ensure that we do that.”

AIB have worked with HR consultancy Pearn Kandola to design and implement a tailored equality and diversity training programme. The aim of this programme is to ensure that all members of the AIB organisation know the behaviour and attitudes required of them at work.

Every staff member, including senior management, must take the interactive e-learning programme. It is hosted on the AIB intranet and takes around 45 minutes to complete.

“There will be an introduction, setting the context initially,” said Whelan. “Then it gives different scenarios with questions to answer about different situations. It will look at internal relationships within the organisation, but also external with customers as well. As with all of our mandatory training, it will be followed up a later stage with a short revision session. For all new staff coming in, it will form part of their induction.”

The programme has not been rolled out yet, but Whelan said she expects it to be in place all across the AIB organisation within two or three months.

Other AIB staff members, especially those with responsibilities in the HR function, require extra specialised equality and diversity training.

“We would have a particular training section towards equal opportunities from an interviewers’ point of view,” said Whelan. “This would cover internal promotion interviews as well as external recruitment policies and procedures.”

IBEC (Irish Business and Employers Confederation) are aware of the need for Irish businesses to invest in equality and diversity training. The IBEC ADR Skillsnet offers a training programme that looks at the issues involved in managing a diverse workforce, and addressing challenges in both attitudes and behaviour.

‘Why can’t we all just get along? Equality, Diversity and Integration in the workplace’ is a one-day workshop focused on the important issues of equality, diversity and workplace integration. The cost of the workshop is €250 for IBEC ADR Skillnet network members and €350 for non-network members. The next programmes take place on the 30th May at the Galway Bay Hotel.

The NCCRI also offer many equality and diversity training programmes.

“We have a range of programmes,” said Watt. “Some are focused on raising awareness and others are about putting policies in place in organisations.”

Watt said that the scale of the equality and diversity training requirements within Irish organisations means that the NCCRI focus not on training individuals. Instead they run programmes which train one staff member from each organisation, who is then able to go back and pass on the knowledge and skills they have learned.

“We have adopted a ‘training for trainers’ approach, which is about training trainers that are already within organisations,” said Watt. “We are training those people up to be competent to deliver inter-cultural and equality training, and have a wide range of expertise in this area.”

The ‘train the trainer’ courses last two full days and are open to people in the public and private sectors.

“It is still very much in its early days at present,” admitted Watt. “Most of the training that we do here at the NCRII is still with the public sector, as that is where the biggest demand is, particularly the health sector. We are seeing much less demand from the private sector, but we hope that will increase over the
next few years.”

Dermot Corrigan