Clarion is a patron of Made in Group and, in this capacity, the firm has signed up to Made in Group’s inclusion pledge. Sarah Tahamtani is head of Clarion’s Employment and Business Immigration team, having received recognition from leading legal directories such as Legal 500 and Chambers UK. Here we explore with Sarah why inclusion is central to everything the firm does. She also shares her tips for manufacturing firms interested in exploring inclusion and equity in the workplace.
Absolute sense
In August 2023, Clarion joined the ever-growing community of Made in Group members and patrons who have signed the Made in Group inclusion pledge. Sarah Tahamtani, head of their Employment team explains:
“Signing up to the Made in Group inclusion pledge only reinforces everything we're already doing around inclusion. It's good from two perspectives. Firstly, because it aligns with our values, demonstrating to our workforce what our values are and where we stand in terms of inclusion and diversity. Secondly, it makes good business sense. All of the data and research points to profitable high-growth businesses having a more diverse workforce, so it aligns with our values.”
What is inclusion in a legal sense?
“There is no legal definition of inclusion. The law focuses on what you're prohibited from doing, not what you should do to encourage inclusion, but sometimes those two things get confused. The legal obligation centres on ensuring that no one in the workforce is disadvantaged in any way because of a protected characteristic, but inclusion goes far, far beyond that.”
By way of a quick reminder, protected characteristics, as defined by the Equality Act, are:
• Age
• Disability
• Gender reassignment
• Marriage and civil partnership
• Pregnancy and maternity
• Race
• Religion or belief
• Sex
• Sexual orientation
Sarah goes on to explain: “It is probably simpler to start with what you can’t do and then explain what is best practice. In terms of what you can't do, the Equality Act sets down protection against detriment based on individual having protected characteristics. One that is commonly known about is ‘sex’ (or ‘gender), but ‘pregnancy and maternity’ is often also closely associated with that.
“There’s also ‘race’, ‘religion or belief’, along with others such as ‘age’, ‘disability’, ‘gender reassignment’, ‘marriage and civil partnership’ too. Some employers struggle to understand some protected characteristics more than others, which reflects the views of our wider society.
“As far as the law is concerned, the one that comes up time and time again is ‘disability’. The reason for that is because it's easy to fall within the definition for ‘disability’ and disability discrimination because the conditions are wide-reaching (either physical or mental) but they’re often not well recognised so most people will, without knowing it, fall into that definition.”
This is why employers need to familiarise themselves with their responsibilities in this area.
“The kind of claims that you can bring for disability are much greater than they are, for example, for ‘age’, ‘race’ or ‘sex’, so it's there's more potential for people to bring claims as there's more people who have that protected characteristic.
“Unlike say ‘race’, the health of your workforce fluctuates and changes over time, so that's probably the most complex to navigate.”
Enormous potential
But with the UK manufacturing sectors facing growing skills shortages as more of the existing workforce approaches retirement, wherever possible, it seems there is huge potential to make employment opportunities more accessible to disabled people, as well as other people with protected characteristics for that matter. A research briefing from the House of Commons library from June 2023 reports: “There were 9.58 million people of working age (16 to 64) who reported that they were disabled in January to March 2023, which is 23% of the working-age population.”
The UK Government published a Disability Action Plan consultation document on 18th July 2023, so disability is a hot topic. In August 2023, the Trade Unions Congress (TUC) declared that it’s now time to introduce mandatory disability pay gap reporting, following a report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission to the UN, which revealed that disabled people continue to be at disproportionately high risk of poverty and low income.
Keep it simple
Sarah reminds employers that there’s no need to overcomplicate things when it comes to the Equality Act though,
“With the protected characteristics in the Equality Act, what you can't do varies depending on which protected characteristic it is but, in a nutshell, in its simplest form, it's making sure individuals who have those characteristics don't face detriment, whether it's dismissal or otherwise. ‘Diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ are not legal definitions. They're more about good working practices and what you should do to promote these.”
It’s good to talk
According to Sarah, regular open communication is key to building trust between employers and their teams.
“It’s understandable that some employers to shy away from tackling these issues but that's where things go wrong. When people stop communicating and stop asking questions, almost not doing anything at all for fear of doing something wrong, but that's when people start experiencing different treatments.
“The best thing you can do is to respectfully ask questions, with the premise of trying to understand. So, if there's something that you don't understand, whether it's someone's religious belief or whether it's their gender reassignment or their disability, the best thing you can do is ask questions, being clear that you are asking with the right intention.
“Often people feel excluded or treated differently because employers not knowing what to do and then actually treating them differently by almost giving them a wide berth for fear of doing anything wrong, which is probably the worst thing to do.”
Encouraging open dialogue as part of the recruitment process
Sarah reminds us about the importance of putting in place some simple good practice right from the start when recruiting new employees too.
“When people ask about disabilities on recruitment forms more often than not candidates will say that they don't have one, they are appointed and then a condition will arise. If the employee only talks about the gravity of their condition when they've secured the role or are past their probationary period the employer may be frustrated that it hasn't been revealed earlier, which can erode trust.
“Maybe the reason for this is because there's fear of how the information is being used but it's important to create the environment for people to be able to share it with you in the first place. Candidates are probably not completely truthful because they're concerned that they won't get appointed. But if they're not truthful you don't have all of the information you need to make the adjustments you can to help make the appointment a success.”
Diversity as a superpower
Considering diverse talent is vital in order to expand the talent pool in the manufacturing sector so it’s key for employers to develop strategies around attracting diverse talent in order do it well. Sarah is passionate about making opportunities as widely available to as many people as possible.
“Maybe the way to start thinking about it is that everybody has a superpower, but a different superpower, and if you can just get the right people with the different superpowers together in the right combination, that's really impactful.
“Different people with different superpowers will be much more impactful and much more productive than having everyone who is the same in terms of their characteristics, as everyone has a different skill. The role of an employer or manager is to achieve the right combination in the jigsaw.”
Difference can be of a particular benefit to manufacturing, for example when it comes to neurodiversity. Sarah explains: “For manufacturers, the one of the best things they can do is develop a better understanding of autism, ADHD and dyslexia, and what those superpowers are as some of those characteristics lend themselves to manufacturing in particular. For example, people with ADHD tend to be less influenced by others and so they can have great attention to detail, meaning they tend to perform very well manufacturing roles.”
Striving to achieve equity rather than equality
When it comes to inclusion and diversity, it’s not about treating everyone the same though. It’s important for employers to familiarise themselves with these simple terms. Sarah clarifies:
“Think about having a race where everyone starts at the same location. This is ‘equality’. ‘Equity’ is where some people might get some assistance along the way, so the race might have staggered start times, for example. It's thinking about the disadvantage and then trying to eliminate it so far as you're able, so that there's a levelling of the playing field. It might mean doing more for some people than you would do for others.
“We were in tribunal, on behalf of a manufacturing client, not so long ago on a discrimination claim. The tribunal asked one of the witnesses, a senior manager from the client, what he understood in terms of equal opportunities. He said he thought it was treating everyone the same, but what the tribunal said was that he fundamentally misunderstood the purpose of equal opportunities.
“The tribunal was getting to ‘equity’ there, so, in that context, it was about a flexible working request for a mother and the manager said: “Well, if I grant it for her, I've got to grant it for everyone.” Fundamentally he’d misunderstood that because of her responsibilities (or her disadvantage) what had to be done was be more flexible, more accommodating and assist more than you would someone else who didn't have the same responsibility in that particular case. That's the difference between the two, but I think often looking at it over simplistically, employers will think that it's about treating everyone in the same way.
“So, going back to the analogy of starting the race at the same location, obviously that's helpful, and that gets you to one kind of equality, but actually in order for it to be equitable, you have to do a lot more for one runner than the other.”
Encouraging employers to put themselves in position of others
It helps for employers to be able to put themselves in the position of others. Male managers who are white, middle-aged and heterosexual might find a lot of protected characteristics don’t apply to them but it helps if they can relate to those that do. Back in 2014, the Workforce Gender Equality Agency in Australia ran a campaign to highlight how companies in which CEOs have daughters have lower gender pay gaps. Sarah points out the effectiveness of encouraging those in the majority to reflect on those closest to them:
“You may not have a protected characteristic yourself, but your teenage daughter might. Or someone in your social circle may have experienced sexual harassment or pregnancy discrimination. It will become more common across society so the issue becomes more familiar to more people.”
The other point to remember is intersectionality — the concept of people falling into more than one of the groups of protected characteristics. Sarah is pragmatic about this though:
“I would just advise not to become overwhelmed by intersectionality because you might find that the reality is that most of us all fall into one of the characteristics, certainly in terms of sex and nationality, whether we are married or we are not married, so everyone has one or more of the characteristics.“But I wouldn't want people to become overwhelmed with, in their minds, even subconsciously trying to label people. I think it's just about increasing your knowledge of your workforce. How much information do you know about your people and what motivates them? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Then, at the same time, it’s about empowering yourself with information about things like disability, and within that, with things like neurodiversity.
“The law is complex in relation to performance and disability, and in some contexts, there is the need to bring in legal advice, but most of the time it's just about being a good human being. My team and I are here to support Made in Group members as much as we possibly can. We do a lot of live webinars and run discussion groups around topics including equity and diversity, as well as recruitment and retention. There's lots of material readily available and I’m more than happy for people to get in touch if they've got a question.
“We facilitate discussions over lunches and dinners too if we have a group of people who are particularly interested in a subject and are finding it difficult. It's powerful to facilitate peer-to-peer learning. We will gather together a group of manufacturers who might have an issue that's particularly at the forefront of their minds. We have done these on issues such as the legal aspects of the skills gap, recruitment and retention and equity, diversity and inclusion. We’re here to help. Most of these issues are shared with others in the sector so collaboration can really help to break down barriers and to give employers the confidence to innovate.”
In conclusion, equity, diversity and inclusion can be real assets to your business. For Made in Group members who sign up to the inclusion pledge there is an exciting opportunity, not only to to fly the flag for inclusion, grow a diverse talent pool and acquire new skills, but also to gain a better insight into their client base. Hiring diverse talent helps companies not only to solve problems better but also to understand their customers better too, so a win/win as more firms realise the importance of valuing difference.
You can reach Sarah by emailing [email protected] or calling 07789 961 705. You may wish to sign up to Clarion’s monthly update bulletin to stay up to date too. Read the latest issue here.
The Made in Group employer toolkit includes a range of high-quality 'Made' employer branding logos and assets. In addition, members gain access to valuable resources through the Made Platform, enabling them to post job vacancies on the Made Futures job board. The platform also offers a job vacancy template for creating customised social ads. By utilising these tools, you can effectively communicate your organisation's dedication to diversity and inclusion, both internally and externally.