Equality

The Ability to Monitor Policies and Procedures Alongside Every Day Business Needs

Coronavirus and the resulting impact on the Welsh economy has brought many new challenges for businesses. Just one of those challenges has been the maintenance of good working practices, and the monitoring of policies and procedures alongside the struggle to meet every day business needs.

A large public sector organisation, with over 4,000 employees, and its recognised Trade Unions invited Acas to carry out a Gender Equality Impact Assessment of its Pay and Grading System.

The key aim of the process was to ensure staff were paid according to their skill-set, though the organisation was keen to go further than just ensuring gender equality,  seeking out advice from Acas on fair pay in relation to disability, ethnicity and other protected characteristics. By providing Acas with various anonymised employee data  an Acas Senior Adviser was able to analyse and give recommendations on   pay equality: informing the organisation’s pay and equality strategies and policies, not just now but for the future.  

By choosing to engage and seek advice from Acas the public sector organisation was able to garner a clear picture of how successfully they were meeting their responsibilities as employers. Ultimately, this led to an improvement in their working practices and the quality of work offered to their staff.