The law provides that it is unlawful to discriminate in certain ways in certain situations.

Those with “protected characteristics” are protected.  The various protected characteristics are; religion or belief, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, sex, age, race and sexual orientation.

Direct.  This is where because of someone’s protected characteristic you treat them less favourably than you do others who do not share the protected characteristic.

Indirect.  This is where, for a seemingly neutral reason, you impose a rule on everyone, but staff who have or share a protected characteristic are put to a disadvantage by reason of the rule.

Harassment.  This is where, because of someone’s protected characteristic, you violate their dignity or create an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them.

Victimisation.  This only applies where someone has raised (or supported a colleague in raising) complaints of discrimination. If anyone has made (or supported) such complaints and you subject them to a detriment, that treatment will count as victimisation (as well as further evidence of discrimination).

Disability discrimination deserves a special mention as it has two further ways in which you can discriminate. These are; discrimination arising from someone’s disability and a failure to make reasonable adjustments.  

There may be discrimination arising from someone’s disability where your reason for particular treatment is not the disability itself, but for something arising in consequence of a person’s disability, for example, dismissing an employee for excessive absence where the absence is caused by a disability.

A failure to make reasonable adjustments is harder to protect against as there is no prescribed list of what amounts to reasonable adjustments and every disability and situation is different. Common adjustments will include a phased return to work, alleviating the employee of work, allowing the employee to work from a different location (including from home), extended breaks etc.

Discrimination can occur inadvertently, but that is no excuse. If you have any concerns around discrimination, we encourage you to seek urgent specialist employment law advice from us to ensure you are protected.