Wednesday 1 June 2016

Speak up against discrimination in the workplace

Don't we all think that discrimination is something that other people suffer from but not us? You will be aware, of course, of the better known areas of discrimination: race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and the lesser known: creed, origin, source of income (in some US states and Canadian Provinces), culture, physical appearance.


But the most common form of discrimination in the UK is ... accent! Do you know when you might have been discriminating against because of the way you spoke? Was that just bad service the other day or was it because you sound ‘posh’ or ‘northern’? Why didn’t you get that job/promotion/course? We often don’t realise when we are being discriminated against. 

We probably do notice or hear about it when someone else is suffering though! That’s why it is important to speak up when we see any discrimination. Edmund Burke reminds us: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men [and women] do nothing." 

I used to say to Canadians, during my two years military service there, that we didn’t have Human Rights in the UK (pre-2000) we instead had good-manners and common sense! They were impressed but I was naïve! How is it good manners to pay women an average of 84% of what men are paid – despite a law against it for nearly 50 years. Common sense to not have sensible representation on Company Boards: ‘pale, male and stale’ is the cry and not so long ago a major national company whose products are aimed at women was recently derided for only having one woman on the Board, and this was in a non-executive director role.

So let’s work on that common sense and good manners – speak-up when you see what you even think is discrimination.

Blog by David Sullivan, CMI Southern Board Chair

Information on the Gender Pay Gap


Mind the Pay Gap, CMI campaign 2015

Gender Salary Reporting, a downloadable guide on the CMI website

Join the discussion on Twitter @cmi_managers using the hashtag #mindthepaygap