At Teach HQ, we are committed to creating an environment that is inclusive and free from discrimination. We strive to ensure our company reflects the diversity of the UK and its communities, promoting equality for all our clients, colleagues and partners. As part of this commitment, we have developed a comprehensive Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) policy to guide our workplace practices and activities.
Our EDI policy centres around five core principles:
1. No Discrimination: We will not tolerate discrimination against any person based on the nine protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010. These protected characteristics are:
- Age
- Disability
- Gender reassignment
- Marriage and civil partnership
- Pregnancy and maternity
- Race
- Religion or belief
- Sex
- Sexual Orientation.
We promote equal opportunities for everyone regardless of their background.
2. Respectful Communication & Behaviour: We expect all colleagues and partners to treat each other and our clients, respectfully and commit to engaging in respectful communication practices both inside and outside the workplace. This includes fostering an environment where everyone feels safe to express opinions without fear of judgement or ridicule.
3. Openness & Accountability: We recognise that open dialogue is essential to create a truly inclusive culture within Teach HQ and encourage everyone to be honest about their views when discussing EDI policies or initiatives. Our management team will be accountable for implementing relevant changes to EDI policies to ensure that we are effectively promoting equal opportunities for all our staff members.
4. Training & Development: To help ensure our teams are equipped with the knowledge required to foster an inclusive working environment, we provide regular training programmes covering topics such as human rights, unconscious bias awareness, and equality, diversity and inclusion. All employees are expected to attend these sessions when available to understand the utmost importance treating everyone fairly and with respect.
5. Positive Attitude towards Change: As a company, we understand that progress takes time, but we must remain open-minded about possible changes related to our EDI policies which could help us reach our goals faster and more effectively. Everyone is encouraged to bring forward ideas which could help move us closer towards becoming a truly diverse organisation where every individual feels respected regardless of their cultural background or beliefs systems.
Core values our business.
Equality, diversity, and inclusion are deep-rooted into the core values and business ethos at Teach HQ.
The core values are communicated to our employees. Our Directors and Leadership team should lead by example, demonstrate the standards expected in our everyday practice and inspire others to do the same.
Key principles
Key principles to build our equal, diverse, and inclusive workforce:
- Effective and clear communication
- Clear expectations
- Promotion and reminders of the business's core values and ethos
- Fair and equal opportunities for all
- Regular team meetings
- Value and respect for our team.
Equal opportunities
In the UK, equal opportunities and recruitment is an important policy to ensure job roles are filled with talented individuals regardless of their protected characteristics. We seek to ensure that all applicants have an equal chance of being recruited for a job role and we also ensure fairness in both recruiting and assessing potential employees.
This is our commitment to ensuring equal opportunities, fair recruitment and reasonable adjustments.
We have workplace rights for our employees:
- Fair recruitment processes
- Equal rights and fair practices
- Fair and positive behaviour from team members and managers
- Equal access to benefits, promotions, and opportunities
- Fair complaints procedures
- Ability to make a grievance without fear of reprisal.
Recruitment
We provide fair recruitment processes that include the following:
- Fair job advertisements are created and displayed in a variety of places
- Job descriptions are provided so applicants can be assessed against the job criteria
- CVs have removed names and sensitive details to prevent biased opinions from forming before the interview
- We use more than one person to interview each applicant
- The same interview questions are used for each person
- Questions are relevant to the job role
- All applicants are treated the same, and personal characteristics never play a part in recruitment.
- The pay scale is the same for each job role and does not vary from person to person doing the same job
- If a person matches the job role criteria and has a disability, reasonable adjustments can be made to accommodate the disability
- Additional support will be provided if a person matches the job role criteria and language is a barrier
- We will never ask questions about health and disabilities.
Note: Failing to offer an applicant a job because of a protected characteristic is a direct discrimination offence under UK laws.
Reasonable adjustments
We are responsible for making reasonable workplace adjustments to accommodate employees with a disability.
For example:
- Modifying buildings and equipment
- Providing car parking spaces close to the business premises
- Allocating different duties
- Allowing regular breaks
- Assigning mentors
- Updating policies and procedures
- Disability workplace audits.
Delivery of our service to clients
We are committed to:
- Providing you with services that meet the requirements required to treat everyone fairly and in a non-discriminatory way
- We always consider our clients' needs, and we embed equality and diversity into our services to you
- We are flexible, and we will make necessary reasonable adjustments when required
- We monitor and evaluate client feedback to ensure we provide you with the highest standard of services possible.
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Stacey Firman, Chief Content Officer
Date: October 2024
Policy Review Date: October 2025