Employment Law Cases

New ‘guidance’ on how sex discrimination law applies to workplace dress codes has been published.

Dress Codes and Sex Discrimination – What You Need to Know is published by the Government Equalities Office (GEO) and follows a recommendation to do so from the Women & Equalities Select Committee. At just seven pages, the guide has the virtue of brevity. Our MD, Beverley Sunderland, comments:

‘When the Women & Equalities Select Committee published their report entitled High Heels and Workplace Dress Codes in January 2017 they concluded that the law was very uncertain when it came to enforcing discrimination claims in situations where workers were, for example, asked to wear make-up or high heels, and the technical problems of passing the “less favourable” test. They said (para 12) that “The Government Equalities Office does not appear to have a grasp of whether employers understand and comply with anti-discrimination legislation when they are implementing dress codes”.

They made a number of recommendations to combat this including reviewing and if necessary amending the Equality Act 2010, increased awareness campaigns at school level, detailed guidance working with ACAS, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission and the Health and Safety Executive, increased financial penalties on employers and the ability to obtain injunctions to stop sexist dress codes. The response of the government was that the law adequately protected women and the only real recommendation they agreed with was that better guidance should be produced. Of course, it is quite possible that the attendance of several male MPs at the President Club where women we were told to wear short skirts when serving the all-male guest list was simply research into this difficult area, rather than active encouragement of the very issues the Women & Equalities Select Committee had highlighted.

The same GEO, without apparently making any further effort to “grasp whether employers understand and comply with anti-discrimination legislation” has now issued what can best be described as a “Janet and John” guide. In fairness it does say “It is best to avoid gender specific prescriptive requirements, for example the requirement to wear high heels. Any requirement to wear make-up, skirts, have manicured nails, certain hairstyles or specific types of hosiery is likely to be unlawful”. The use of the words ‘it is best to’ and ‘likely to be’ reinforces the view of the Women & Select Equalities Committee, who had spent a lot of time talking to those who do have a grasp on whether employers understand, that the law was not clear enough. The link to the ACAS guidance is to a booklet written in 2016.