Introduction:
The report aims at providing background information about the development of Equality legislation and diversity approaches with context to UK and EU. The report identifies and relates the significance of the Equality Act 2010 to the operations of HNS Trust (Alexis, 2002). The focus is on the change and progress of the legislative framework rather than detailed analysis of it. It analyzes how the Trust may improve its effectiveness of internal interview process by addressing the equality and diversity issues as shown in the report. The interview process at the Trust is studied in detail with special emphasis upon the suitable human resource models that can be applied within the organizational environment.
Another case scenario has been provided about the organization BAME, and the report aims at analyzing the legal and diversity related issues along with the annual appraisal process. The report provides recommendation about improving the effectiveness of the annual appraisal so that potential talents are recognized and rewarded regardless of their background.
The report ends with a conclusion that draws all important analysis outcomes from the entire paper. The recommendations are provided based on their relation to the future practices in the field of human resource management.
The Equality Act 2010 harmonizes as well as consolidates the prior equality legislation for ensuring protection and consistency for individuals listed in the ‘protected characteristics’ – age, gender, marriage, disability, civil partnership, maternity, religion, race, sex, pregnancy, and sexual orientation (Beecham, 1994). The act puts forth an innovative general duty on public bodies for carrying out all functions and addresses the following:
- The need for eliminating discrimination, victimization, and harassment;
- The urgency of advancing opportunity equality amidst individuals sharing relevant protected attributes and those who do not;
- The need for fostering effective relations amidst individuals sharing relevant protected attributes and those who do not (White, 2009).
The Act focuses on the particular duties which reflect what public bodies are required to do for meeting the general duty. The main focus of the act is embedding equality considerations within the daily work of all public authorities, so as to manage discrimination as well as inequality to contribute to the society fairly. It requires all public bodies to publish all annual details of equality profile of respective workforce. This act provides due protection from the restricted group of individuals. Instance of such prohibited conduct include direct or indirect discrimination, perceptive discrimination, associative discrimination, victimization or harassment (Bullying is common in NHS trust, 1999). The Equality Act 2010 motivates positive action for implementation that would provide increased support to the disadvantaged individuals. This group refers to the individuals who are underrepresented in employment or any service provision. Hence, additional encouragement gives opportunities to those individuals.
The Act had come into force in October 2010. The Equality Act combines together more than 116 different pieces of legislation within one main act. In the combined state, these make up the new Act which provides a strong legal framework for protecting the rights of all individuals as well as advancing equality of opportunities for all (Gilbert, 2012). This seems to strengthen, simplify, and harmonizes the ongoing legislation for providing Britain an innovative discrimination law that protects all individuals from any sort of unfair treatment, and also promoting a fairer equal society. All major parts of the legislation that have been merged are:
- The Equal Pay Act 1970
- The Race Relations Act 1976
- The Sex Discrimination Act 1975
- The Disability Discrimination Act 1995
- The Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003
- The Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003
- The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2003 (Chang, 2007)
- The Equality Ct 2006, Part 2
- The Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007
Progress:
Several further elements exist within the Act that did not come into force in October 2010; however may be included in the future. Some of the instances are:
- Duty for making meaningful adjustments to common parts of leasehold as well as local premises
- Provisions in relation to auxiliary aids in educational institutions
- Reporting diversity by political parties
- Provisions about access to taxi (Chilton, 2008)
- Prohibition upon discrimination of age in public occasions and services
- Civil partnerships upon religious ground
The NHS Trust is strongly committed towards providing ‘high quality care’ to all in present and future generations. This is not really possible to be delivered without proper adoption of measures for advancing equality and manage health inequalities. Besides this commitment, it enables promotion of equality as required by the Equality Act 2010, and addressing health inequalities as demanded by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 (Gilbert, 2012). The Trust promotes equality and manages health inequalities in the following ways: Being a system leader, in compliance with other health care systems; it is enacted principally with convening debate, agreement, and reflecting a mirror to the whole operations of NHS, and with the effective discharge of commissioning functions, the Trust works.
The Trust aims at giving opportunities to all patients, staff, care givers, or service users to voice their opinions regarding how services must be structured and delivered (Gray and Ghosh, 2003). It emphasizes upon valuing commitment of community to get engaged with its work and operations for improving the service experiences.
Recruitment and Selection Policy at NHS:
The Trust suitably recognize that effective practices of recruitment and selection are fundamental to its henceforth success, where proper selection would result in better and enhanced patient care, high morale, low employee and staff turnover, reduced absenteeism. The policy framework has been designed for assisting the organizational managers to hire the best candidates in vacant positions at reasonable cost that follows its own standards of employee legislation, equality policies and diversity approaches (Greener, 2005). Appointments of medical staffs are subjected to additional measures as well as specialist advices that are sought in human resource. The Trust ensures that all its employees, whether temporary or permanent, have been vetted thoroughly with all mandatory checks as per NHS Employment Checks prior to beginning work at the Trust. All activities of recruitment are in accordance with the Diversity and Equality Opportunities Policy of the Trust along with its Retirement Policy (Series of NHS events aims to promote equality and diversity, 2012). The Trust is a part of the Two Ticks Employer scheme that ensures an interview for all qualified but disabled applicants.
Recruitment of the Right Resource: Approval Procedure
Within the Trust’s human resource, all recruitment needs approval through the HR1 Form. The Recruitment Manager fills the HR1 Form with respect to current resource plans along with any additional information that aim at determining how effectively to fill the vacancy. As a part of the form, the manager is required to conduct a six-point test (Harrisr and Foster, 2010). This test focuses upon the potential to pursue financial saving, for instance, Absorb duties and Decommission, Reduce Banding, reduce Hours, Appoint Fixed term, Defer Appointment, etc. When the HR1 form is filled and the test has been carried out, then it needs the signature of the Divisional Managers. When completed, it is sent to the Management Accounts to approve financially. Once approved, the recruiting manager or management accounts would send it to the human resource that prepares vacancies pass through the weekly Vacancy Scrutiny Panel. Every outcome approved or not, is communicated to the recruiting manager on the very same day of the Scrutiny Panel (Johns, Green and Powell, 2012).
The members of the interview panel meet prior to the interview and prepare relevant questions. The questions are structured that would ascertain the candidates based on the criteria specified in the person specification. Each interviewer prepares the questions individually for the applicants. Panel members also consider reasonable adjustments for specific applicants who suffer any disability. The panel never asks questions related to personal circumstances of the disabled applicants. However, when applicants mention about the personal circumstances themselves, the panel may respond to it with major emphasis on the capabilities of the applicants to perform job duties (Johnson, 2011). The panel abides by the rule of the Equality Act 2010 which makes questioning about individual health status for a post illegal unless after they have been made a conditional offer letter. Structured interview gives confirmation that similar areas are encompassed for all candidates and interviews are job-related. The panel probes responses as required hence they are met with the given information. The answers of the applicants are recorded as well as scored so as to facilitate effective decisions by the management.
As per the given scenario of BAME, the employees are not given their annual appraisals by the managers on account of institutionalized racism that prevails in the organization. There may be several reasons behind this. Racial discrimination has been a key reason. The managers at NHS are whites, their attitudes are appealed by stereotyping, their prejudices may be informing, and are not very confident of giving the organization proper feedback (Leck and Orser, 2013). At BAME, although files are created and established for every employee on individual basis that record all accomplishments and areas to improve, the organization lacks providing regular feedback. Effective and regular feedback is essentially important for all organizational members to realize their goals, performance, and achievements to assess their progress. The performance management fails to initiate with employee planning and ending with evaluation of employee progress. The organizational managers and employees need to meet on a regular basis and discuss upon individual goals and accomplishments. The process gets speeded up with effective feedback system.
In case of BAME, it is important for the organizational management to establish effective feedback system upon which employees strive since it ensures their effective performance towards job duties as well as responsibilities, depending upon the organizational expectations. Disciplinary issues must be taken care of and the organization must go for management by objectives (NHS Trust reaps the rewards of diversity, 2006). In this process of performance appraisal, employees are assessed on the basis of their performance towards the accomplishment of some goals and objectives that have been earlier assigned to them. This promotes their professional career within the business. By applying the appraisal process of management by objectives, the employees are appraised solely on the basis of the their performance and productivity as compared to the individually-assigned goals and objectives. The feedback is provided by the higher authority at the time of appraisal meetings; their feedbacks are completely based on the performances of the organizational members (Pines, Lerner and Schwartz, 2010). So, this process has nothing to do with their cultural or social backgrounds.
Conclusion:
The NHS Trust strives to endeavor for embedding Equality and Human Rights considerations within the services as well as employment practices for managing all disadvantages as well as improving health inequalities specifically for protected groups. The equality team identifies the threats ahead and thus developed a suitable action plan that would make inroads within addressing various deprivation as well as inequality in employment as well as services. The Trust designs and implements several policies as well as practices which meet all diverse needs of customers and community at large. It is exclusively meant for to create fair and just access to services, goods, employment, and other facilities for all. It aims at reducing all disadvantages that are experienced by specific group of individuals as compared to that of others. The Trust strives to eliminate discrimination and focus on equality opportunities to foster effective and positive relationships amidst various group members, thereby ensuring fair and equitable treatment to all individuals, irrespective of sex, caste, age, creed, race, religion, civil partnership, gender, or sexual orientation. The Equality Act combines together more than 116 different pieces of legislation within one main act. In the combined state, these make up the new Act which provides a strong legal framework for protecting the rights of all individuals as well as advancing equality of opportunities for all. This seems to strengthen, simplify, and harmonizes the ongoing legislation for providing Britain an innovative discrimination law that protects all individuals from any sort of unfair treatment, and also promoting a fairer equal society. Thus, the report has adequately considered all areas of equality as well as diversity, along with their impacts upon the outcomes as well as experience of individuals.
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