Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations

The December 2003 employment regulations protect lesbians and gay men from discrimination at work for the first time.

The new laws affect gay people in different ways:

	Direct discrimination An employer can no longer refuse to offer someone a job because they are gay. Neither can they treat someone less favourably because of their sexual orientation
	Indirect Discrimination Employers can no longer apply 'blanket' policies to all staff that specifically disadvantage those who aren't straight
	Harassment Any behaviour that violates the dignity of, or which creates a hostile or intimidatory environment for, a lesbian or gay man is now illegal. This would include things such as name-calling and being ignored
	Victimisation It's now illegal for employers to victimise anyone who assists a lesbian or gay colleague in pursuing a complaint

These regulations have been warmly welcomed by gay people across Britain as marking a transformative change in their working environment. However, while the ‘stick' of statutory enforcement is important, the ‘carrot' – key areas of good practice – is equally so.

Creating Diversity Champions
Stonewall works to achieve equality and justice for lesbians, gay men and bisexual people. Our Diversity Champions programme has been working with employers of almost two million people providing advice and support on sexual orientation issues in the workplace for a number of years. Members of the Stonewall Diversity Champions programme now range from Barclays and IBM in the private sector to the Home Office and the Inland Revenue in the public. Just recently we were joined by the Royal Navy who wanted to show their commitment to recruiting, and retaining, lesbian and gay personnel.

Stonewall was one of the first organisations to produce comprehensive guidelines for employers to explain the changes in the law and offer help in meeting the new requirements. We also produced straightforward advice leaflets for employees to ensure that everyone was aware of the change in legislation. These good practice toolkits, based on the experience of Stonewall Diversity Champions, were funded by the Department of Trade and Industry and Barclays, and have been warmly appreciated by many employers. Stonewall has recently republished both sets of guidelines with further advice and clarification.

Areas of good practice
Many of the recommended areas of good practice, such as nurturing and supporting networks for gay staff, are similar to the practical steps often already taken in terms of minority ethnic staff or women. Others, such as monitoring, may involve an approach and a sensitivity which has not been the focus of so much attention in the past. Some employers have expressed concern on this issue, and have received conflicting advice from their lesbian and gay networks and forums. Many of these concerns have revolved around whether staff will find such monitoring intrusive or feel that the information will be used against them. Stonewall has taken the view that, as when monitoring of ethnicity was introduced, there may be initial opposition but eventually such monitoring will become standard. Indeed, if all other minority groups are monitored, then the omission of sexuality on the monitoring form will appear incongruous.

Last month, Stonewall launched its first annual Corporate Equality Index. Showcasing the top 100 employers for gay people in Britain, the purpose of the Index is to serve as an agent of change encouraging good practice around sexual orientation issues. One unintended outcome has been approaches from dozens of university career services and the Index has now been circulated to all services across the country. Advisers suggest that lesbian and gay graduates are now considerably more willing to shop around for gay-friendly employers than might have been the case 20, or even 10, years ago.

Above all, it is important to recognise that an integrated approach to diversity works best. Staff, and service users too, need to be valued not for being black, or older, or gay but for being individual. Market leaders who want to maximise shareholder value or deliver world-class public services now acknowledge that they need to recruit and retain the best human capital in order to achieve those organisational objectives. Stonewall's view is that embracing every aspect of diversity is no longer a matter of compliance. It is now a matter of common sense.

Andy Forrest is Communications Officer at Stonewall. Visit the website at www.stonewall.org.uk  or contact employmentteam@stonewall.org.uk.