Avoiding Workplace Discrimination: A Practical Guide for Employers

Sadly, workplace discrimination is still a big problem in the UK. We’ve made good progress with diversity and inclusion, but there is still a way to go.

Almost half of UK workers report experiencing discrimination, particularly around their age, gender, race, parental status and disability. All employers have a responsibility to prevent workplace discrimination – it’s not just the right thing to do, it’s a legal requirement.

But tackling discrimination isn’t just about ticking boxes. It’s about creating a workplace where everyone feels respected, supported and set up for success. And when they do, you’ll have a more productive team that enjoys coming to work.

In this guide, we’ll explain what workplace discrimination is, what it can look like in the workplace and what steps you can take to prevent it.

What is workplace discrimination?

Workplace discrimination is when a person or group of people are treated ‘less favourably’ at work due to their protected characteristics, such as age, disability, gender or race.

Less favourable treatment can be anything that puts someone with a protected characteristic at a disadvantage compared to someone who doesn’t have that characteristic. This might include things like:

• Making it difficult for someone to do their job
• Excluding someone from promotions or benefits
• Causing someone emotional distress

The Equality Act 2010 is the law that protects people against discrimination at work. Under the Equality Act, anyone who works for an employer is protected against discrimination, but contractors and self-employed people are also protected, alongside job applicants and former employees.

As the employer, you have the main responsibility for preventing discrimination, and you can be held responsible for the actions of your workers, in what’s known as ‘vicarious liability’.

However, anyone who discriminates against someone at work is responsible for their own actions, and complaints and employment tribunal claims can be made against individuals as well as employers.

What are protected characteristics?

Protected characteristics are the attributes or traits of a person that the law safeguards from discrimination. Under the Equality Act, there are nine protected characteristics:

• Age: Protects individuals of any age. An example of age discrimination could be not offering someone a promotion because they are considered ‘too old’ for the job.
• Disability: Covers physical or mental impairments that have a substantial and long-term adverse effect on a person’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. An example of disability discrimination could be not having wheelchair access to your building.
• Gender reassignment: Protects those who want to undergo, are undergoing, or have undergone a process to reassign their sex. An example of this type of discrimination could be if a person faces bullying or harassment due to their gender reassignment.
• Marriage and civil partnership: Protects individuals who are married or in a civil partnership. An example of discrimination could be not offering a job to someone who is in a civil partnership because the employer doesn’t agree with them.
• Pregnancy and maternity: Covers women who are pregnant, have recently given birth, or who are on maternity leave. Discrimination of this form could be if an employer refuses to offer a woman a promotion because she has recently had a baby, and the employer thinks she won’t have the time to spend on the role.
• Race: This characteristic includes colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins. Racial discrimination may include someone not being offered a job due to the country they come from, because the employer has prejudices about people from that country.
• Religion or belief: Covers any religion or religious or philosophical belief. An example of this type of discrimination could be not inviting followers of a certain religion to company social events because of their beliefs.
• Sex: Protects individuals based on their sex. For example, it would be discrimination to pay men and women differently for equal work.
• Sexual orientation: This characteristic covers all sexual orientations, including heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual and other orientations. An example of this type of discrimination could be if an employer discovers that an employee is homosexual, then starts assigning them the least favourable shifts all the time, putting them at a disadvantage.

Types of discrimination

There are a few different types of discrimination, and some forms are not always easy to spot. The types of discrimination noted by the Equality Act are:

Direct discrimination

Direct discrimination is when someone is put at a disadvantage or treated differently because of a protected characteristic, compared to someone who doesn’t have that characteristic.

This type of discrimination could include excluding an employee from opportunities at work, causing them distress, or making their job harder.

Within direct discrimination, there are three different types:

• ‘Ordinary’ discrimination – when it happens to someone who has a protected characteristic
• Discrimination by association – when it happens to someone who has a connection with someone with a protected characteristic
• Discrimination by perception – when it happens to someone who is thought to have a protected characteristic, when they don’t

Indirect discrimination

Indirect discrimination is when a policy or working practice at your company is the same for everyone, but it has a negative effect on someone because of their protected characteristic. This type of discrimination can be harder to spot, and it’s not always someone’s intention to discriminate.

Policies or working practices that may count as indirect discrimination may be formal or informal policies or ways of working, and may not always be written down. Examples of policies or working practices that could be indirect discrimination include:

• Dress codes
• Policies or decisions around facilities such as toilets or staff rooms
• Policies on flexible working or working from home
• The selection criteria used in recruitment

Harassment

There are three types of harassment detailed in the Equality Act 2010:

• Harassment related to a protected characteristic is unwanted behaviour related to a person’s protected characteristic
• Sexual harassment, which is unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature and doesn’t need to be related to a protected characteristic
• Less favourable treatment as a result of harassment, which is when someone experiences less favourable treatment because of how they responded to harassment in the past

The law on harassment doesn’t include protection for being married or in a civil partnership, or for being pregnant or on maternity leave. But if someone is treated unfairly because of one of these things, it could still count as direct discrimination.

Harassment and bullying are related, but they’re not the same. However, bullying might be considered harassment if it fits one of the three types of harassment we talked about earlier.

Victimisation

Victimisation is when someone is treated less favourably as a result of being involved with a discrimination or harassment complaint. The law says that it’s when someone suffers due to doing or intending to do a ‘protected act’.

A protected act is an action someone takes related to discrimination law. It could cover:

• Making a discrimination or harassment complaint
• Supporting someone else’s complaint
• Giving evidence that doesn’t support someone else’s complaint

The Equality Act also protects someone from victimisation when another person thinks they have done or intends to do a protected act, even if they haven’t.

When is less favourable treatment not classed as workplace discrimination?

There are some occasions when an employer might need to make certain decisions that may lead to less favourable treatment, but they can be justified and aren’t considered unlawful discrimination.

Examples of when less favourable treatment might be justified include:

• Positive action: To help a disadvantaged or underrepresented group, such as women or people of colour
• Objective justification: When you can prove a legitimate need for less favourable treatment
• Disability exceptions: When you need to make a change to prevent disability discrimination when you want to recruit a disabled person
• Occupational requirement: When you’re recruiting someone with a certain protected characteristic to do a particular job

With objective justification, you need to be able to prove that there is a ‘legitimate aim’. If you can prove that there’s a genuine business need or a health and safety need, and that the need is more important than any discriminatory effect, then it can be legal.

In most cases, you must always try to find a way to achieve your aim that either doesn’t discriminate or discriminates less first. It’s highly unlikely that financial reasons alone will be enough to justify discrimination.

What workplace discrimination can look like

Workplace discrimination isn’t always easy to spot, and sometimes it isn’t even intended. That’s why it’s important to understand what workplace discrimination looks like so you can nip any issues in the bud before they become unlawful.

It can be obvious: It can be things like name-calling, making racist comments or making fun of someone due to a protected characteristic they have.

It can go unnoticed: Other forms of discrimination are less obvious, like unconscious bias (making judgements based on our previous experience or deep seated beliefs without realising we’re doing it), stereotyping (making assumptions based on someone’s protected characteristic) or microaggressions (subtle and often unintentional actions that communicate negative messages towards people with a protected characteristic). 

It might happen in decision-making: Intentional or unintentional discrimination can happen when making decisions about workplace practices, such as performance management, redundancy, workplace facilities or sickness absence.

It can be regular or one-off: Workplace discrimination doesn’t just have to be a regular pattern of behaviour, although this is more serious. It can also be a one-off incident, and they should be dealt with in the same way as longer patterns of discrimination.

It doesn’t have to happen on site: Workplace discrimination can happen at your usual place of work, but also at work social events and when working remotely. It can also happen face-to-face, online, in emails or in phone calls.

It can take many forms: Discrimination may happen verbally or in written words, imagery, gestures, jokes, pranks or unwanted physical contact.

However and wherever workplace discrimination takes place, it can be very distressing for the individual. That’s why employers have a duty of care to prevent discrimination in their workplace.

Why you must prevent workplace discrimination

The Equality Act 2010 requires all employers to take steps to prevent discrimination. Acas says that you should:

• Understand what the law says about discrimination (we’ve just summarised this for you!) and what your rights and responsibilities are
• Recognise the benefits of an inclusive and diverse workforce
• Put policies and procedures in place and keep them up to date
• Provide training to your staff and management
• Create ways for staff to be heard, and make it clear how they can complain if they experience discrimination or see it happen to someone else

The public sector equality duty

If you work in the public sector, or your company does work on behalf of the public sector, there is a specific legal duty under the Equality Act called the public sector equality duty (PSED) that you need to follow. 

The duty aims to ensure that public bodies consider the needs of everyone in their day-to-day work, which includes their employees, when they’re shaping policies and when they’re delivering services.

The duty requires employers to consider how they can stop discrimination for staff, customers and service users and help support equality and equal opportunities in the day-to-day running of their organisation. It also requires public sector employers to consider how they can tackle prejudice and promote understanding of all protected characteristics.

Vicarious liability

Earlier we mentioned that employers can be held responsible if one of their employees discriminates against someone in what’s called ‘vicarious liability’.

The law says that a worker and an employer could be held responsible if the discrimination happens ‘in the course of employment’ – that is, something that’s linked to work.

So, even if the discrimination happens at a work social event, or through social media that is linked to work, you could be held responsible for it.

For example, if one of your employees makes a derogatory comment to a colleague about their sexual orientation at a company social event, you could also be held responsible for that discrimination unless you’d already taken all reasonable steps to prevent discrimination from happening.

This is where ensuring that you have the right policies and procedures in place and offering regular training is crucial – more on that later.

Third party harassment duty

Third party discrimination and harassment are also problems that many employees face. This refers to discrimination or harassment that an employee experiences from someone outside of the organisation, such as a client or visitor.

In October 2024, the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 came into force, which requires employers to take reasonable steps to prevent workplace harassment, particularly sexual harassment. However, the new Employment Rights Bill (ERB) will take that further.

The ERB introduces a new requirement for employers to prevent third party harassment of employees. Once it’s in force, it will apply to harassment due to any protected characteristic, not just sexual harassment. And unlike the Worker Protection Act, the ERB requires employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent all types of third party harassment, not just sexual harassment.

The benefits of preventing workplace discrimination

Eliminating prejudice and preventing discrimination in your workplace is obviously the right thing to do. But there are many organisational benefits too:

• Reduces the risk of employment tribunal claims: It’s your legal obligation to prevent workplace discrimination. So by taking a zero-tolerance approach, you reduce the risk of being taken to an employment tribunal. And if you do, you can prove you took all reasonable steps.
• Improves productivity: When you create a work environment where everyone feels that they can be themselves, and they know that you will support them should they experience discrimination, your team will be more productive. In fact, happy workers are 13% more productive than unhappy ones.
• Reduces turnover and absenteeism: Employees who feel valued and supported are less likely to leave your organisation, and are less likely to take time off sick. According to the SHRM, workers in positive organisational cultures are almost four times more likely to stay with their current employer.
• Attracts top talent: When you create a diverse, inclusive workforce and take all the steps to prevent workplace discrimination, you’re more attractive to top workers. 76% of job seekers consider workplace diversity an important factor when they’re evaluating companies and job offers, so it’s important to work on equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in your organisation.

So, there are clear benefits of preventing discrimination in your workplace. But what can you do to make your organisation stand out as one of the best for preventing it and for creating a positive culture?

Steps every employer can take to prevent workplace discrimination

Our team suggests that you take the following steps to prevent workplace discrimination:

Create an inclusive environment

Cultivate a culture where employees feel valued for their unique identities and perspectives. This means celebrating diversity, encouraging respectful dialogue, and discouraging stereotypes or exclusionary behaviour. Your leaders should model the behaviours you want to see from all your staff.

Uphold and regularly review policies and practices

Ensure your anti-discrimination, EDI, flexible working, dress code, bullying and harassment and family-friendly policies are not only in place but actively upheld and periodically reviewed to reflect evolving needs and standards.

Provide comprehensive training

Educate all staff on recognising discrimination, understanding unconscious bias and handling EDI matters. Regular training helps prevent issues before they arise and supports a more inclusive workplace.

Foster support networks and employee voice

Create and support employee-led networks, such as LGBTQ+, carers or women’s groups, and anonymous feedback channels to help amplify underrepresented voices and support cultural inclusion.

Make your reporting procedure clear

Ensure that all employees know how to raise concerns or lodge complaints, and they understand that reporting discrimination is taken seriously, confidential, and they shouldn’t fear retaliation.

Develop mentoring schemes for disadvantaged groups

Offer mentoring and career development opportunities tailored for disabled employees, ethnic minorities, or other disadvantaged groups to help address workplace inequities and unlock career potential.

Monitor and review your EDI progress regularly

Keep track of progress through EDI monitoring, staff surveys, exit interview data, and pay reviews. Use these insights to identify patterns, evaluate progress, and plan targeted intervention where required.

By taking these steps, you reduce your risk of liability but also improve your employees’ sense of wellbeing and inclusion, creating a more productive, positive workplace. Preventing workplace discrimination isn’t just the law – it makes business sense.

How we can help

Our team of specialists are here to help you with all aspects of preventing workplace discrimination:

• Employee communications
• Equality and diversity
• Cultural audits
• Line manager and supervisor training
• E-learning
• Sexual harassment training
• Grievance investigations, hearings and appeals
• Disciplinary investigations, hearings and appeals
• Workplace mediation
• Pay structures and benchmarking projects
• Gender pay gap reporting, equal pay
• Appraisals and performance management
• Exit interviews and reporting
• Employee handbooks, policies and procedures