With the Equality Act coming into force in October of this year, organisations need to be prepared for the changes in legislation, or employers could find themselves facing expensive lawsuits. That’s according to Maggie Berry, Managing Director of womenintechnology.co.uk.
“It’s great news that these changes are coming into force to strengthen existing equality laws, but employers need to make sure they know exactly what is happening” explains Berry. “The Government Equalities Office predicts that allowing combined discrimination (for example claiming discrimination based on both age and race) will result in a 10% increase in claims – and that is only one of the many changes! Being up to date with these aspects of employment law will both protect businesses from legal challenges and also protect a bigger proportion of the workforce from being discriminated against.”
Jennifer Bartlett, solicitor at internationally recognised law firm Kingsley Napley adds, The changes introduced by the Equality Act will help to simplify our existing employment laws, which is good news for employers and employees. The Equality Act also introduces some new obligations which may have a large impact on the employment sphere - what this space! Employers frequently have issues with discrimination when they are not aware of the current law. Keeping up to date now will help avoid difficulties later on down the line.
Womenintechnology.co.uk and Kingsley Napley have put together a white paper detailing the main changes that will come into force this October and in April 2011. For your free copy please visit http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/white-papers.