Each month, Legal Island’s popular ‘Employment Law at 11’ webinar with Seamus McGranaghan, Director from O’Reilly Stewart Solicitors, brings sharp legal insight on topical issues. 
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How can organisations demonstrate the value of DEI to employees and stakeholders?

And I suppose that's really what you were talking about there. We need to be taking all employees with us. There will be people who feel like, "Well, why is it always “themmuns” that are getting the help, and why am I struggling?" So you have to kind of try and take everyone with you, and that is a very difficult task, isn't it Seamus?

I mean, the key for that and the legislation and the guidance, if we think of it in this way, it's not about giving somebody an advantage. It is about putting somebody on the same level and playing field as others. That's what this is really about. So it's not about giving somebody an outright advantage. It's about levelling the playing field and allowing others in society to play along with you. That's the simple view of how to look at it, I think.  

And you will get kickback from certain employees where they think it's unfair that somebody is being accommodated more than others, but that's how you should bring that back and say, "This is not an unfairness. This is making this fair for this individual or for this group of people".  

I think in terms of how you demonstrate the value of that to your employees is that you look at your recruitment, you look at your retention, you ask, "Are you a good place to work?" and you demonstrate to your employees, not on paper but by actions, as to how you are a good place to work.  

And even around flexibility, if you have an employee that comes and says, "I need, for the next two weeks, to work half-days", if you have a sufficient resourceful employee bank, you can accommodate that. You can't accommodate it if you don't. If there's no flexibility built in, you're not able to accommodate that.  

And that will apply equally to all employees, because everybody has those points in life where they need a little bit of flexibility, whether it's because we're caring for children or for our older folk, or whether it's because we've hit a hump in life and something has come up and we need to deal with it through illness or whatever the issues are.  

There has to be that equality and equity across the board for everyone. Just because one person is benefiting from that at one moment in time doesn't mean that you haven't in the past or that you're going to need in the future. So I think that is a good example of how you can demonstrate that to your staff.  

It's the aspect as well that if the business that we work in is thriving and doing well and it's because we have diversity and equity included in our workplace, our profits are better. And technically speaking, when our profits are better, our wages should be higher, as long as we don't have the fat cat aspect hoarded at the top.  

But you see so much now about how employer businesses demonstrate that they are open about their profit. They're open about their ability. And more and more I see for bonus schemes, and when I'm reviewing contracts of employment, how open businesses are with their employees about their bonuses, and particularly those bonuses around how the company is performing as well as how the individual is performing. So those are the sorts of things.  

The bottom line is that money talks. It's an important aspect. The way to get to that, and I think that's clearly what the guidance is about and what diversity and inclusion is about, is about bringing stability to the organisation. It's putting those add-ons to the business that allow the business to perform and hopefully increase profits, and those are shared.  

And more resources are open to the other employees. Whether that is about further training, CPD, opportunities to move up the ladder and work, which is supported by your employer funding courses or training for you, it's bringing it all back to that, and I think demonstrating that to your employees.  

So I think it's always helpful to . . . Some employers do an end-of-year update to their employees, or they do quarterly updates to their employees. You have to shout and put your wins and your successes out there.