Fair Treatment at Work Survey The Fair Treatment at Work Survey Equality and Diversity Forum,...

Fair Treatment at Work Survey

The Fair Treatmentat Work Survey

Equality and Diversity Forum, London, 18 July 2007

Grant FitznerDirector, Employment Market Analysis and Research

Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory ReformWeb pages: www.berr.gov.uk/employment/research-evaluation

[email protected]


Structure of presentation

• About the survey – What is the FTWS?• Design of FTWS

– sample design, survey structure, survey content

• Unfair treatment at work• Discrimination at work• Workplace bullying• Sexual harassment• Concluding remarks

Part 1:ABOUT THE SURVEY


What is FTWS?

• First British survey of employees to explore unfair treatment, bullying and sexual harassment at work

• Asks questions on two levels: – about personal experience (self)

– and about awareness of treatment of others in workplace

• Used to explore all six equality strands– and many other potential causes of unfair treatment


Fieldwork

• Cognitive and pilot test• Main fieldwork – November 2005 to January 2006• Nearly 4,000 face-to-face interviews achieved• Boost of sub groups: ethnicity, young, old, religion


Aims and objectives

• Comprehensive survey of unfair treatment, discrimination, bullying and sexual harassment

• Robust and reliable statistical instrument– and a discrete set of questions in future surveys

• Statistically representative sample• Of sufficient size to do breakdowns• A baseline for monitoring and evaluation• Contribute to DTI’s research programme on the

nature and causes of racial discrimination at work


Caveats

• This is a complex survey – seven major questions

– two different population bases

• The survey reports employee’s perception– these are subjective,and will vary between individuals

and groups

• Care must be taken when interpretingthese findings

Part 2:UNFAIR TREATMENT

AT WORK


Question 11• In the last two years with your employer, have you PERSONALLY been treated

unfairly because of any of the following?• Age• Gender• Nationality• Religion• Race or ethnic group• Sexual orientation (e.g. gay, straight, lesbian, bi-sexual etc.)• Disability• Long-term illness• Marital status• Political beliefs• Colour of skin• Physical appearance• The way they dress• Being pregnant• Union membership• Accent or the way they speak• Address or where they live• Social class• Other• No


Incidence of personal unfair treatment• Around 1.6 million or 6.9% of employees said they

had personally been treated unfairly at work in the last two years

• Only small differences by sex, religion or sector• But disabled employees twice as high (15%)• Gay, lesbian and bisexual also high (14%) • Also differences by race/ethnicity

– Black employees (12.5%)

– Asian employees (8.0%)

– White employees (6.5%)


Employees reporting personal unfair treatment at work in last 2 yrs, by type

0.8%

0.8%

0.5%

0.4%

0.4%

0.4%

0.4%

0.4%

0.4%

0.4%

0.3%

0.3%

0.3%

0.0% 0.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.4% 0.5% 0.6% 0.7% 0.8% 0.9%

Age

Long-term illness

Accent or way I speak

Race or ethnic group

Disability

Physical appearance

Gender

Being pregnant**

Nationality

The way I dress

Union membership

Religion

Colour of skin


Incidence of personal unfair treatment, bullying and sexual harassment• Around 2.1 million or 8.9% of employees said they

had personally experienced unfair treatment, bullying or sexual harassment in last 2 years

• Only small differences by sex – 8.0 per cent for males vs. 9.9 per cent for females

• Disabled employees very high – 19.7 per cent vs. 7.6 per cent non-disabled

• Also differences by race/ethnicityNon-white (11.2%)

White employees (8.6%)


Unfair treatment of others at work• One in seven (14.0%) employees who worked with

others said they were aware of others at work being treated unfairly

• More likely to be reported by:– disabled employees (21%)

– gay, lesbian or bisexual employees (18%)

– black employees (17%)

– public sector employees (17%)

• But 85% of all employees neither experienced unfair treatment themselves, nor aware of any other person at work being treated unfairly


Unfair treatment at work in last 2 years

4.2%both

personally and other

2.7%personally

only

8.0%others only

85.1% had not experienced

unfair treatment personally and were not aware of others, or did

not know

Personally (6.9%) Other people (12.2%)*


Unfair treatment by industry

8.2

12.2

12.7

14.1

14.2

14.9

15.9

18.4

20.4

21.0

21.2

0% 4% 8% 12% 16% 20% 24%

Construction

Hotels and restaurants

Education

Real estate, renting and business activities

Wholesale, retail trade and motor trade

Manufacturing

Health and social work

Community, social, personal services

Public administration and defence

Transport, storage and communication

Financial intermediation

Part 3:DISCRIMINATION


Incidence of discrimination at work

• Around one in every thirty employees (3.5%) reported discrimination at work, as defined here

• Of the six equality strands, disability and long-term illness was the most common (1.2%)

• Followed by race-related discrimination (1.1%), gender (0.9%), age (0.8%) and religion (0.2%)

• Sexual orientation was lowest– too small to be reported


Table 1. Personal experience of discrimination at work in the last two years by equality strand (% all employees, Great Britain) Male Female White Non-white Total Disability discrimination 1.4% 0.9% 1.3% 0.4% 1.2% Sex discrimination 0.5% 1.4% 1.0% 0.7% 0.9% Race discrimination 1.0% 0.6% 0.4% 4.0% 0.8% Age discrimination 0.9% 0.8% 0.9% 0.7% 0.8% Religious discrimination 0.3% 0.2% 0.2% 1.1% 0.2% Sexual orientation discrimination * * * - * All types of discrimination at work 3.6% 3.5% 3.3% 5.6% 3.5% Source: First Fair Treatment at Work Survey, DTI, Question 11. N=3,936 (all employees) Note: * = less than 10 cases, - = nil response Note: Disabilit’ includes discrimination because of long-term illness. Sex includes marital status and being pregnant. Race includes ethnic group, nationality and colour of skin.

Part 4:WORKPLACE BULLYING

& SEXUAL HARASSMENT


Incidence of workplace bullying

• Almost one million employees (3.8%) said they had personally experienced bullying or harassment at work in the last two years

• Women (4.9%) more likely to have been bullied than men (2.8%)

• Even higher amongst disabled employees– especially high amongst disabled women

• No significant differences by age or ethnicity• Over one in ten (10.6%) of employees who worked

with others said they were aware of others at work being bullied or harassed


Bullying at work in the last two years

14.4%

4.9%

3.6%

6.4%

2.8% 2.4%

0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

16%

Disabled employees All employees Non-disabled

Women Men


Incidence of sexual harassment

• Much lower than bullying– only 9 in every thousand employees (0.9%)

• More women (1.1%) than men (0.7%)– though men account for two-fifths

• Disabled employees five times as likely as non-disabled to be sexually harassed

• Managers twice as likely as non-managers• Almost 4% of employees who worked with others

said they were aware of others at work being sexually harassed

Part 5:SUMMARY


Some key findings for researchers

• Black and disabled employees suffer a much higher incidence of unfair treatment than other groups

• Unfair treatment on the basis of long-term illness was twice as common as for disability

• Almost one million employees have experienced workplace bullying in the last two years– and particularly high for disabled women

• Younger workers are more likely to report age discrimination than older workers

• Two-fifths of those sexually harassed are men


A mixed picture

• Vast majority of employees (85%) say they areare unaffected and unaware of unfair treatment

• But a sizeable minority of employees have experienced some form of unfair treatment in the last two years


A complex picture

• Some types of unfair treatment and discrimination seem quite straight-forward (e.g. age)

• Others are more clustered (e.g. race)– race and ethnic group, nationality, colour of skin

• Unfair treatment is not evenly dispersed– appears to be clustered in certain workplaces

– and among specific groups

Part 6:FUTURE RESEARCH


Related EMAR research

• Second Fair Treatment at Work Survey– some scope for extension– looking for research partners

• Maternity and Paternity Rights Survey 2007– unfair treatment of women due to pregnancy

• 2006 British Social Attitudes Survey• Work-Life Balance Employer Survey 2007• Vulnerable workers research• Equalities Data Review Task Force

DISCUSSION

Fair Treatment at Work Survey The Fair Treatment at Work Survey Equality and Diversity Forum,...

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