A recently published report by DLA Piper has revealed that women and minorities are under-represented in most UK companies.

According to the report, 54% of the 147 senior HR managers surveyed agreed that women and minorities were not adequately represented in their workforce.

The Government’s upcoming Equality Bill intends to address this situation by including provisions for organisations to favour equally-qualified candidates on the basis of their minority status. These provisions could prove difficult to implement, however, as many recruiters will be wary of attracting lawsuits from unsuccessful candidates who feel they have been discriminated against.

The report also states that only 5% of companies currently reports on gender pay and that 61% have not audited gender pay differences. According to the Office of National Statistics, the gender pay gap between full-time workers has recently risen to just over 17%, with the figure being dramatically higher in some sectors.

In contrast to these figures, however, the report states that 68% of HR professionals in the private sector do not consider that their organisations show a pay bias in favour of men.

One of the ways in which the Equality Bill will attempt to tackle the gender pay gap problem is through banning pay secrecy clauses in employment contracts. The Government claims that these clauses are widespread, and that banning them will expose pay gaps and shame companies into rectifying them.

Again, the report does not bear these figures out. Of those who took part in the survey, only 6% operated such clauses. More worryingly, only 15% of those polled said that banning pay secrecy clauses would make their organisation review their gender pay gap situation.

Another issue that will be addressed by the Equality Bill is discrimination by association. The report showed that many HR professionals believe that this, in conjunction with the right to request flexible working, could cause problems for HR professionals.

28% reported that they had already had to balance competing requests from, for example, a parent of a young child and the carer of a disabled family member, and 58% felt that they had not been able to accommodate both requests satisfactorily. More than two-thirds (69%) of those surveyed indicated that balancing such requests is likely to become an increasingly significant problem.

If you feel that your are suffering discrimination at work, either directly or by association, employment law specialists Ashby Cohen can help. Contact us today for a free initial telephone consultation.

Technorati Tags: EMployment Discrimination, Equality Bill, HR Survey, Human Resources