The purpose of this Act is to ensure that within the workplace men and women are treated equally and that no one is treated less favourably on grounds of either sex or marital status.
The reality of course is that men and women are often different to each other. We can have different builds, different skills, different approaches to work and issues in general, and we often have different interests and motivations. And herein lies the dilemma for all of us, how can we ensure equal treatment in the workplace when it is crystal clear that we are not equal in all things and also when we seldom operate as equals in all aspects of our homelife (for example, who writes the Xmas cards, who organises the social life, who does the garden, who checks the tyres of the car, who tends to cook, who tends to clean, who tends to knock together anything delivered flat pack etc).
But if we cannot guarantee equal treatment given our differences, the next best thing for most of us mortal souls is to ensure no one is treated less favourably than others. To achieve this, managers need to first be aware of the expectations of the individual staff members they have, and secondly, to have a degree of understanding of the perceptions of those staff members in terms of what is and is not fair treatment. Only then can we start to work towards treating all staff no less favourably than their colleagues.
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