Equal Opportunities Policy

1.Introduction

The purpose of this policy is to confirm Mayflower Engineering Ltd's (‘Company’) commitment to eliminating discrimination amongst our workforce. Our objective is to create a working environment in which there is no unlawful discrimination and all decisions are based on merit. This policy is our commitment to high legal and moral standards in all of our business activities.

 We aim to ensure that all employment decisions are taken without reference to irrelevant or discriminatory criteria. We have adopted the following Equal Opportunities Policy as a means of helping to achieve these aims.

 We are committed to ensuring that all our employees and applicants for employment are protected from unlawful discrimination in employment.

 This policy applies to all employees, workers, agency workers, contractors and job applicants.

This policy has the full support of our board of directors.

 The company reserves the right to alter any of its terms at any time; this policy does not give contractual rights to individual employees.

 2. What is Discrimination?

 Discrimination is unlawful when it takes place on one of the following grounds (the ‘protected characteristics’):

• age
• marital status
• disability
• gender (including gender re-assignment)
• marriage and civil partnership
• pregnancy and maternity
• colour / race / ethnic or national origin
• religion or belief
• sexual orientation

 Discrimination can take a number of forms: 

• Direct discrimination is when someone is treated worse than someone else because of a protected characteristic. 
•  It is also direct discrimination when someone is treated worse than someone else because they associate with someone with a protected characteristic or because they are perceived to have a protected characteristic. 
• Indirect discrimination is when an apparently neutral practice or requirement disproportionately disadvantages one group and cannot be justified by the needs of the business. For example, imposing a requirement that job applicants must speak fluent English disproportionately disadvantages non-English groups and would be unlawful unless it could be justified on genuine business grounds.
• It is also discrimination when a disabled person is treated unfavourably because of something connected to their disability and this cannot be justified by the needs of the business or when the business fails to make reasonable adjustments for a disabled person.

 3. Recruitment and Selection

•  We aim to ensure that job requirements and job selection criteria are clear and based only on what is required to get the job done effectively.  We will avoid making stereotypical assumptions based on protected characteristics about who is able to do a particular job.
•  We aim to ensure that no job applicant is placed at a disadvantage by practices or requirements which disproportionately disadvantage protected groups and which are not justified by the demands of the job.

 4. Promotion and Training

 Promotion and training decisions will be made on the basis of merit. We will not unlawfully discriminate against any employee in making promotion or training decisions. We believe all employees should have an equal opportunity to progress and develop. 

 5. Working Conditions and Terms of Employment

•  We will try to accommodate cultural or religious practices such as prayer requirements where we reasonably can. 
•  We aim to ensure that our terms of employment, benefits, facilities and policies are free from unlawful discrimination.
•  We will ensure that decisions made under our disciplinary, grievance, performance management and attendance management policies are carried out fairly and without discrimination.

 6. Termination of Employment

• We will ensure that we avoid discrimination in making decisions about dismissal or redundancy.
• Where possible, we will ensure that any manager’s decision to dismiss an employee is endorsed by another manager and the HR department. We will encourage leavers to give feedback about their employment in exit interviews.

 7. Your rights and responsibilities

•  You have the right not to experience unlawful discrimination in our workplace.  You also have a responsibility to understand this policy and help us to implement it.
•  All employee workers, agency workers and contractors have a duty not to discriminate against each other and not to help anyone else do so. 

 8. Our relationships with visitors/customers/suppliers

 You must not discriminate against any of our visitors/customers/suppliers. Equally, we expect our visitors/customers/suppliers not to discriminate against you and we will take appropriate action against any visitor/customer/supplier found to have done so.

 9. What to do if you have been discriminated against

 If you believe you may have been discriminated against, please tell us. You can speak informally with your manager or HR.  If you want to make a more formal complaint, you are encouraged to raise the matter through our grievance procedure. If you believe there has been any bullying or harassment, then you should raise the matter through our bullying and harassment procedure.

 Allegations of potential breaches of this policy will be treated seriously. Employees and contractors who make such allegations in good faith will not be victimised or treated less favourably as a result. However, false allegations of a breach of this policy which are found to have been made in bad faith will be dealt with under our disciplinary procedure.

 10. What will happen if you act in a discriminatory way?

 If, after investigation, we decide that you have acted in breach of this policy, you may be subject to disciplinary action up to and including dismissal.  This applies to the most senior levels of management as well as to all other employees. 

 11. Data protection

 For information about our processing of personal data under this policy, including details of our legal grounds for doing so, how long we retain such personal data, who your personal data is shared with, your rights under data protection law and who you should contact if you have any concerns, please see our employee privacy notice, a copy can be obtained from the HR Department.

 12. Policy review and promotion

•  We will promote and publicise our equality policy on notice boards.
•  We will review our equality policy periodically.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy

Mayflower Engineering Limited wholeheartedly support the principles of Equality and Diversity in employment and opposes all forms of unlawful or unfair discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, nationality, ethnic or national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, age or disability.

 The Senior Management Team believes that it is in the best interests of both the Company and all who work in the Company, to ensure that the human resources, talents and skills available throughout the community are considered when employment opportunities arise. Discrimination of any kind that prevents the Company from doing so is a misuse and waste of human resources and a breach of the fundamental human principles of respect, fairness and dignity.

 The Company will take every step to ensure that individuals are treated equally and fairly and that decisions on recruitment and selection, training, promotion and career development are taken solely on job based criteria.

 However, within the framework of the Law, the Company is committed wherever practicable to achieving and maintaining a workforce which broadly reflects the community in which the Company operates.

 To put this policy into practice the Company will take the following actions:

•  Examine and review existing procedures for recruitment, selection, promotion, training and grievance
• Provide training and guidance for key decision-makers
• Monitor the existing workforce
• Review this Policy on a regular basis

 The Senior Management Team fully support the aims and objectives of this statement. All the Company’s employees are responsible for playing their own invaluable part in achieving its objectives