Employment Law Focus

Unconscious bias

Episode Summary

It’s been talked about for a number of years but many employers still aren’t doing enough to reduce the risk of unconscious bias infiltrating people’s decisions about candidates and colleagues.

Episode Notes

Unconscious bias (UB) is a growing legal issue for employers. It’s widely regarded as a barrier to equality, diversity and inclusion, and employment tribunals are looking more closely at motivation and bias in discrimination and harassment cases.

While it’s been talked about for a number of years, many employers still aren’t doing enough to reduce the risk of UB infiltrating people’s decisions about candidates and colleagues.

In this episode, we discuss:

How does UB present itself as a legal issue?
Ways of reducing the risk, including training, recruitment models and corporate culture
What the employment tribunal looks for
Proving UB and a direct causal link
Discrimination and reasonable adjustments case law

In our news section, we cover:

Facial recognition technology and a case showing just how far organisations must go to satisfy themselves that there isn’t a risk of bias
The breakdown of working relationships between employees, and a surprising decision that a dismissal was fair, even though there was no dismissal process
Employment status, including a finding of “false self-employment” – a stark warning ahead of possible job losses as a result of the pandemic
The latest predictions about the Supreme Court’s pending decision in the Uber employment status case, due later this year

We also share our views on the government’s long-term “back to work” plan, including refusal to return to work, unfair dismissal, flexible working requests and indirect sex discrimination.