Under the Equality Act 2010, every employer in the UK has a legal obligation to prevent discrimination in the workplace. This is not optional. Employers who fail to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent discrimination can be held vicariously liable for the actions of their employees, and thousands of employment tribunal claims are brought each year on the basis of protected characteristics. Many more incidents go unreported entirely.
Effective EDI training gives employees and managers the knowledge to understand their legal obligations, recognise discriminatory behaviour, challenge bias, and contribute to a workplace culture where diversity is genuinely valued.
This guide covers the legal framework, the key concepts, employer obligations, and practical steps for building a truly inclusive workplace.
The Equality Act 2010: the legal framework
The Equality Act 2010 is the primary piece of legislation governing equality and non-discrimination in England, Scotland, and Wales. It consolidated and replaced previous anti-discrimination laws (including the Race Relations Act, the Sex Discrimination Act, and the Disability Discrimination Act) into a single, unified framework.
The Act protects individuals from discrimination in the workplace and in wider society. It applies to all employers regardless of size, and covers employees, workers, job applicants, and in many cases, self-employed contractors.
The nine protected characteristics
The Equality Act protects people from discrimination on the basis of nine protected characteristics.
Age covers protection against discrimination based on age, whether young or old. This applies to recruitment, promotion, redundancy, terms and conditions, and retirement.
Disability is defined as a physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on a person’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. Employers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees. Our Disability Awareness course explores this topic in greater detail.
Gender reassignment protects people who are proposing to undergo, are undergoing, or have undergone a process to reassign their sex. A person does not need to be under medical supervision to be protected.
Marriage and civil partnership protects people who are married or in a civil partnership from discrimination. This protection applies specifically in the context of employment.
Pregnancy and maternity covers protection against discrimination related to pregnancy, pregnancy-related illness, and maternity leave.
Race includes colour, nationality, ethnic origin, and national origin. Protection covers all aspects of employment and service provision.
Religion or belief protects people of any religion, religious belief, or philosophical belief, including lack of belief.
Sex provides protection against discrimination on the basis of being male or female.
Sexual orientation protects people who are heterosexual, gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
Every employee should be able to identify the nine protected characteristics and understand that discrimination on any of these grounds is unlawful.
Types of discrimination
The Equality Act defines several forms of unlawful discrimination. Understanding these distinctions is essential for both employers and employees.
Direct discrimination
Direct discrimination occurs when a person is treated less favourably than another person because of a protected characteristic. For example, refusing to interview a candidate because of their ethnic background, paying a woman less than a man for the same work because of her sex, or not promoting someone because they are over 50.
Direct discrimination can also occur by association (treating someone less favourably because of the protected characteristic of someone they are associated with, such as a family member) or by perception (treating someone less favourably because they are perceived to have a protected characteristic, even if they do not).
Indirect discrimination
Indirect discrimination occurs when a policy, practice, or rule that applies to everyone puts people with a particular protected characteristic at a disadvantage. A requirement for all employees to work full-time, for example, disproportionately affects women with childcare responsibilities. A dress code that prohibits head coverings disproportionately affects people of certain religions. A physical fitness test for a role that does not require physical fitness may disproportionately affect disabled applicants.
Indirect discrimination can be justified if the employer can show that the policy is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, but the burden of proof is on the employer.
Harassment
Harassment is unwanted conduct related to a protected characteristic that has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment. Our Bullying and Harassment course provides detailed training on recognising and addressing these behaviours.
This includes offensive jokes, comments, or “banter” related to someone’s race, sex, disability, or other protected characteristic. It also covers displaying offensive materials in the workplace, unwanted physical contact, and excluding someone from social or work activities because of a protected characteristic.
It is the effect on the recipient that matters, not the intention of the person responsible. “It was just a joke” is not a defence if the conduct had the effect of creating a hostile or degrading environment.
Victimisation
Victimisation occurs when a person is treated badly because they have made or supported a complaint of discrimination, or because they are suspected of doing so. For example, an employee who gives evidence in a colleague’s discrimination claim and is subsequently passed over for promotion as a result has been victimised.
The law protects people who raise concerns about discrimination. Employers who retaliate against them face additional liability.
Unconscious bias
Unconscious bias refers to the automatic, unintentional stereotypes and assumptions that influence our decisions and behaviour. Everyone has unconscious biases. They are a product of our upbringing, experiences, culture, and the media we consume.
In the workplace, unconscious bias can affect recruitment decisions (favouring candidates who look, sound, or think like the people already on the team), performance reviews (rating people differently based on characteristics unrelated to their actual performance), promotion decisions (assuming certain types of people are “leadership material” while others are not), and daily interactions (interrupting certain people more often, giving more airtime to particular voices in meetings, or making assumptions about someone’s capabilities).
Common types of unconscious bias include affinity bias, where you favour people who are similar to you, and confirmation bias, where you seek out information that confirms your existing beliefs about someone. The halo effect means letting one positive characteristic influence your overall impression, while the horn effect does the opposite with a negative characteristic. Attribution bias means attributing success or failure differently depending on the person, for example assuming a man’s success is due to skill but a woman’s is due to luck.
Unconscious bias training does not aim to eliminate bias. That is not realistic. Instead, it aims to raise awareness of how biases operate, provide strategies for mitigating their impact on decisions, and create a culture where bias can be openly discussed and challenged.
Employer obligations
Duty to prevent discrimination
Under the Equality Act 2010, employers are vicariously liable for acts of discrimination, harassment, and victimisation carried out by their employees in the course of employment. If an employee discriminates against a colleague, the employer can be held legally responsible.
Employers do have a defence, though. They need to demonstrate that they took “all reasonable steps” to prevent the discrimination from occurring. This is why training matters so much. Providing regular, documented EDI training to all staff is one of the most significant reasonable steps an employer can take.
Duty to make reasonable adjustments
Where an employee or job applicant has a disability (as defined by the Equality Act), employers have a duty to make reasonable adjustments to remove or reduce any disadvantage they face. This might include modifying the physical workplace with ramps, accessible toilets, or adjustable desks, providing assistive technology or equipment, adjusting working hours or patterns, reallocating certain duties, allowing additional time for tasks or assessments, or providing information in accessible formats.
The duty is triggered when the employer knows, or could reasonably be expected to know, that the person has a disability. The adjustments must be “reasonable,” taking into account the size and resources of the organisation, the cost of the adjustment, and the extent to which it would remove the disadvantage.
Public sector equality duty
Public sector organisations (and private organisations carrying out public functions) have an additional obligation under the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED). This requires them to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, and victimisation, to advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not, and to promote good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not.
While the PSED does not apply directly to most private sector employers, it reflects best practice principles that all organisations can benefit from adopting.
Building an inclusive workplace: practical steps
Legal compliance is the baseline. Truly inclusive workplaces go further. Here are practical steps that organisations can take.
Review your policies
Ensure that your equal opportunities, anti-harassment, grievance, and disciplinary policies are up to date and clearly communicate your organisation’s commitment to equality. Policies should set out what behaviour is expected and what is unacceptable, how complaints will be handled, the consequences of discriminatory behaviour, and how the organisation will support employees who raise concerns.
Train everyone
EDI training should not be a one-off exercise for new starters. Regular training for all employees, including senior leaders and managers, reinforces expectations, builds awareness, and keeps EDI on the organisational agenda. Our Equality and Diversity course provides a thorough grounding in the Equality Act, protected characteristics, types of discrimination, and inclusive workplace practices.
Review recruitment practices
Examine your recruitment processes for potential bias. Are job descriptions written using inclusive language? Are qualifications and requirements genuinely necessary, or could they inadvertently exclude certain groups? Are diverse candidates being reached through your advertising channels? Is your interview panel diverse? Are interview questions standardised to ensure fairness? Are selection decisions documented and justifiable?
Collect and analyse data
You cannot improve what you do not measure. Collect diversity data (with appropriate consent and anonymity protections) on your workforce composition, recruitment outcomes, promotion rates, pay levels, and grievance patterns. Analyse this data to identify disparities and inform targeted action.
Address pay gaps
Organisations with 250 or more employees are required to publish gender pay gap reports annually. But organisations of all sizes should be monitoring pay equity across protected characteristics. Where gaps exist, investigate the causes and take action to address them.
Create employee networks and forums
Employee resource groups, diversity networks, and staff forums give employees a voice and a platform to share their experiences, raise concerns, and contribute to organisational change. They also signal to employees from underrepresented groups that the organisation values their perspective.
Lead from the top
Inclusion starts with leadership. Senior leaders who visibly champion EDI, through their words, actions, and decisions, set the tone for the entire organisation. This means going beyond statements and policies to demonstrable action: attending EDI training themselves, holding managers accountable for inclusive behaviour, and ensuring that diversity is reflected in leadership and decision-making roles.
EDI in hospitality
The hospitality industry is inherently diverse. Hotels, restaurants, bars, and catering companies employ people from a wide range of backgrounds, nationalities, ages, and life experiences. This diversity is a strength, but it also means that EDI awareness is especially important.
There are several particular considerations for hospitality. Many hospitality teams include staff whose first language is not English, so ensuring that communication, training, and policies are accessible to all is essential. Our Cultural Awareness course covers this topic in more detail. The sector’s reliance on shift work can disproportionately affect employees with caring responsibilities, disabilities, or religious observances, making flexible and fair rota practices a key part of inclusion. Hospitality staff frequently encounter discriminatory behaviour from customers, and organisations should have clear policies and support in place for staff who experience this. Tipping, service charges, and pay must be distributed fairly and without discrimination. Career progression opportunities should be equally accessible to all, regardless of background.
Positive action
The Equality Act 2010 allows (but does not require) employers to take positive action to address disadvantage, underrepresentation, or particular needs connected to a protected characteristic. This is different from positive discrimination, which is generally unlawful.
Examples of lawful positive action include encouraging applications from underrepresented groups through targeted advertising, offering mentoring or development programmes to employees from underrepresented groups, and using the “tie-breaker” provision (where two candidates are equally qualified, preferring the candidate from an underrepresented group).
Positive action must be a proportionate response to a genuine disadvantage or underrepresentation. It is not about lowering standards or treating people preferentially. It is about removing barriers and creating genuinely equal opportunities.
How to get trained
Chefs Bay Academy offers a detailed Equality and Diversity course that covers the Equality Act 2010, protected characteristics, types of discrimination, harassment, victimisation, reasonable adjustments, unconscious bias, and building inclusive workplaces. The course is suitable for employees at all levels and across all sectors. It provides the knowledge that every employee needs to understand their rights and responsibilities, and gives managers the tools to create and maintain an inclusive team environment.
Getting started takes minutes. A licence costs £29, and each learner gets access to the Equality and Diversity course plus 130+ other courses in the library. The course is entirely self-paced and works on any device. At the end, you pass an assessment to confirm your understanding and download a CPD accredited certificate immediately.
The £29 licence also includes courses on workplace compliance, mental health awareness, GDPR, health and safety, and dozens more, making it an affordable training solution for your entire team.
Frequently asked questions
Is equality and diversity training a legal requirement?
There is no specific legal requirement to provide EDI training. Under the Equality Act 2010, however, employers are vicariously liable for acts of discrimination carried out by their employees. Having a defence depends on being able to show that you took “all reasonable steps” to prevent discrimination, and regular, documented EDI training is one of the most important reasonable steps you can take. In practice, any employer who does not provide EDI training is exposing themselves to significant legal risk.
How often should EDI training be refreshed?
Best practice is to provide EDI training to all employees as part of their induction and to refresh it at least every two to three years. Some organisations include a shorter refresher annually. Regular training ensures that knowledge stays current, reinforces organisational expectations, and demonstrates ongoing commitment to equality.
Can I be held personally liable for discrimination at work?
Yes. Under the Equality Act 2010, individuals who carry out acts of discrimination, harassment, or victimisation can be held personally liable alongside their employer. Employees, not just the organisation, can be named as respondents in employment tribunal claims.
What should I do if I witness discrimination in the workplace?
If you witness discriminatory behaviour, report it through your organisation’s grievance or reporting procedure. If you feel comfortable and safe doing so, you can also challenge the behaviour directly at the time. Employers are legally prohibited from retaliating against employees who raise concerns about discrimination (victimisation is unlawful). Keeping a written record of what you witnessed, including dates, times, what was said or done, and who was present, can be important if the matter is investigated formally.
Related guides
If you found this guide helpful, you might also want to read:
- Mental Health Awareness in the Workplace (mental health conditions are protected under the Equality Act, making these topics closely linked)
- Safeguarding Training: Who Needs It and What It Covers (safeguarding and equality share common ground around protecting vulnerable individuals)
- GDPR Training for Employees (handling diversity data and special category personal data requires GDPR awareness)
All these courses are included in your Chefs Bay Academy licence — £29 for instant access to 130+ courses.