Fisher Jones Greenwood recently commissioned a survey in order to gauge the prevalence of discrimination within today’s workplace.
Of the 1,600 people surveyed, almost 20% say they have experienced discrimination of some type during their career, whether it be a one off occurrence or an ongoing issue.
Despite the development of a workplace culture which enables employees to identify and report incidents where they feel they have been discriminated against, 44% of the people surveyed who said they had felt discriminated against did not take any action regarding the incident(s).
The survey consisted of the following questions:
Question 1. Have you been discriminated against at work to any degree?
17% of have been discriminated against at work
More women than men (21% vs 13%)
South East has the highest rate of all the regions at 21% and Northern England lowest at 12%.
Cardiff (29%) has the highest levels for an individual city, followed by Norwich (26%) and London (22%).
Question 2. What type of discrimination were you subjected to? (of the total 17% who had been discriminated against…)
Gender and age are the areas of most discrimination with 27% and 23% claiming discrimination on these grounds respectively. Race/nationality and physical appearance were next most common types at 15% each and then social class 12% and disability/illness at 11%. Least prevalent was sexual orientation at 6%.
Women experienced the greater percentage of discrimination based on gender (37% vs 12%).
Age discrimination data reveals interesting findings: 37% of people aged 65+ claim to have experienced age-related discrimination but 50% of young people aged 18-24 also claim to have experienced age-related discrimination.
Question 3. When you were discriminated against, what was your working environment?
Public sector (16%) is the working environment in which most discrimination has occurred, followed by Teaching & Education (12%). Retail & sales (11%), Health & Social Care (10%), Hospitality & Travel (9%), Banking & Finance (8%). [Please note, the percentages represent the proportion of the overall total who believe they’ve been discriminated against and not percentages of people who have experienced discrimination within each sector.]
Within the Public Sector, the types of discrimination are as follows:
Gender, Age, Disability/illness, Social Class, Physical Appearance, Race/Nationality
Within the Teaching & Education sector, the types of discrimination are as follows:
Age, Gender, Race/Nationality, Accent or regionality, Social Class, Disability/Illness
Question 4. What action did you take as a result of the discrimination?
Men are slightly more likely than women (58% vs 55%) to take action as a result of the discrimination they suffered.
30 out of 268 = 11% of those who have been discriminated against sought legal advice.
19 out of 268 = 7% of those who have been discriminated against tried to bring an employment tribunal.
Of all types of discrimination, Age-related cases are most likely to end up in tribunal proceedings.
For employers, this is a stark reminder that discrimination in the workplace is still a very real issue, affecting nearly 20% of the workforce. Employers therefore need to ensure that they have robust policies in place to ensure that their organisation can effectively deal with these cases as and when they arise. MyFJG includes legal templates and guidelines for the Grievance Procedure and Dispute Resolution, with key documents for employees and staff that employers can complete themselves during a complaint process to ensure adherence to procedures.
For more information regarding the above or to request further details, including regional statistics, please contact Matt Cann, Digital Marketing Manager at Fisher Jones Greenwood on 01206 835215 or email [email protected].