3 Legislative Papers to Promote Workplace Diversity and Inclusion

What you’ll discover:

Policy Against Discrimination
Employee Manual
Employee Complaint Form Receive assistance with discrimination prevention for your company.

An inclusive workplace promotes diversity and a cooperative, collaborative atmosphere that is fair to all employees. An inclusive corporate culture fosters a feeling of belonging for all employees, improves team performance, and has a significant impact on a company’s bottom line. According to a 2015 Deloitte report, diverse small businesses beat their counterparts with a cash flow that is 13 times greater per employee than non-diverse small businesses.

Failure to handle discrimination or harassment may potentially result in legal issues. Complaints may result in investigations and even legal lawsuits, with workers and others being awarded monetary damages. To succeed and avoid legal liability, business leaders must practice inclusiveness and promote the same mindset across their firm.

In addition to recruiting a diverse workforce and adhering to relevant legislation, creating an inclusive and diverse environment requires the supply of specific resources and written rules. Declaring that you are diverse or inclusive without clear rules in place is ineffective. Instead, you should use the following legal papers to put your inclusion aim into action.

Policy Against Discrimination

Discrimination on the basis of race, religion, creed, color, nationality, sex, handicap, and other categories is expressly prohibited by federal and state law. Other groups not recognized at the federal level, such as family status, are protected in several states. The first step in developing norms and standards for inclusion and diversity is to adopt a policy that states that discrimination will not be tolerated.

An anti-discrimination policy outlines exactly how your company will handle workplace discrimination concerns. It outlines expectations and provides guidance on how workers should report incidents of prejudice. It also specifies how you intend to handle any concerns or complaints.

Harassment, a type of discrimination, may also occur in the job. The Anti-Discrimination Policy may also specify how harassment based on an employee’s membership in a protected class will be handled. Your policy should also handle retribution against workers who report suspected discrimination, sending a clear message that complaints will be treated seriously and addressed fairly.

Employee Manual

Small company owners sometimes ignore the value of an Employee Handbook, yet it may be a valuable resource for gathering all of your employment processes and rules. A section in the handbook, for example, explicitly displaying forbidden types of discrimination may assist ensure that workers understand the expectations of inclusion from the start of their employment. If a disagreement arises, a written policy demonstrates that they were aware about the laws and your expectations as an employer.

Companies may include their anti-discrimination policy in their employee handbook or mention it in the handbook and create two different papers.

Form for Employee Complaints

You can’t be everywhere all of the time as a company owner. Workers may be on their best behavior while you are around, but they may not be so after you leave the room.

Let your workers to report others to you in confidence and without fear of reprisal when they see or experience activities that violate your Anti-Discrimination Policy. Identifying and resolving these problems as soon as possible benefits your company’s general morale and reduces the chance of discrimination and harassment legislation infractions.

An Employee Complaint Form allows workers to record discrimination or harassment concerns, either on their own behalf or on behalf of others. Making your complaint form anonymous will encourage workers to report any infractions. These papers may also be used to capture verbal employee complaints to human resources officials, which will aid in disciplinary actions, including termination.

Get assistance with prejudice prevention for your company.

Discrimination is a serious problem that, if ignored, may have serious consequences. Protect your organization by consulting with a lawyer about what you need to put in place to reduce the probability of future harassment or discrimination situations.