Structures and Communication

This means organising the organisation to promote Equality Issues. This involves the establishment of the structures necessary to build Equality, which are an Equality Committee and an Equality Officer.

Equality Committee

The formation of an Equality Committee provides the most appropriate forum to design the Equality Policy and to promote its active implementation. An Equality Committee brings together representatives of employers and employee / trade union representatives, on a voluntary basis, to develop and implement Equal Opportunities policies and procedures. An existing committee formed to deal with related issues can have its role expanded to deal with the Equality agenda.

Terms of Reference for an equality committee would be:

1. Monitoring Equality in the workplace.
2. Promoting positive actions.
3. Identifying and addressing equality issues arising under the nine grounds.
4. Preparing awareness days and briefings.
5. Building an ethos of equality in the workplace.
6. Promoting the commitment of management and employees to equality.
7. Establishing systems to review practice and procedure to measure their impact.

Equality Officer

It is important that initiatives are taken and that these are monitored for impact and reported on. The naming of an equality officer is a valuable step in this regard.
An Equality officer should be a person of seniority who is given responsibility for equality issues.

The Equality Officer could:

• Convene the equality committee.
• Implement equality related actions.
• Take up issues related to equality.
• Build a knowledge base and keep up to date with equality issues.
• Arrange the distribution of literature on equality issues.
• Prepare an equal opportunities website link.
• Monitor the implementation of the employment equality policy.

Communication

The communication of an Employment Equality Policy throughout the organisation and its customer and supplier circuits is considered a priority. Reaching all sections, divisions, levels and sites of an organisation can be difficult, but is very important. This communication must first ensure that all employees have a full understanding of all the issues involved.

Soliciting feedback is important to ensure new ideas are harnessed but also to serve as a motivator for staff.

Actions that should be taken in this regard are:

1. Make reference to Valuing People and Equality in the Mission Statement.
2. Develop an Equality Policy Statement and communicate it via poster campaign and post on the organisation website.
3. Include a section on Equality & Diversity in the Organisation's Annual Report.
4. When advertising job vacancies in the media the advert should state that the organisation is an Equal Opportunities Employer and welcomes applications from all sections of the community.