Q5 How can equality be achieved in organisations?
A Appointing an equality officer
B Drawing up a strategy
C Writing a policy
D Changing the culture
E Training
F Telling people not to treat people unequally
G Introducing equality recruitment
H Copying how other organisations have done it
A5 The alternatives given here (except F which is not likely to be helpful) are all initiatives that can be and are taken to try and bring about equality in an organisation.
Our experience at Maine-Stream is that, in isolation, they are unlikely to be effective. For example, many organisations appoint an equality officer, but that person then struggles to make real progress on equality/diversity because she (usually a woman) has to battle against a resistant culture, is given little support, has difficulty getting the funding needed for training, and becomes isolated.
In other words, equality/diversity initiates are more likely to be successful if they take a strategic and systematic approach, thinking about all aspects of the organisation. Piecemeal approaches do not work, because there is likely to be some other aspect of the organisation that will work against any equality initiatives.
To read more about this, see "The Diversity Diamond — a Developmental Approach to Equality".
If you have feedback on our suggested answers (or disagree with them!) please let us know.
