ScottishPower introduces discrimination-awareness portal
International energy company ScottishPower has introduced a discrimination-awareness portal to support its positive approach to employee relations.
The portal offers access to a number of resources, including a “trailer”for the resource, and links to the company intranet, as well as two e-learning modules. The portal also tracks usage, enabling the company to ensure that all employees have undertaken the training.
The employee module uses a video narrative filmed at Shoreham power station. It deals with the key areas of potential discrimination – age, religion and belief, disability, race, gender and sexual orientation. It has been rolled out to all ScottishPower employees.
The course was designed in response to the Employment Equality (Age)Regulations, which came into effect in the UK last year, as well as ScottishPower’s commitment to raising awareness on the wider aspects of discrimination.
“We commissioned Brightwave to work closely with our HR project team to create these modules, following a successful relationship with the company over the last five years,” said Joyce Thomson, senior project consultant.“The project management for development of the modules was also important as we were working to tight timescales.”
As well as the main module for all ScottishPower employees, an additional managers’ guide was created, drawing from the scenarios in the employee module. The managers’ module covers individual and organisational obligations in relation to discrimination legislation in more depth.
“Development of the managers’ guide was essential for our management population, as it covers the questions that may arise as a result of the raised awareness of discrimination issues among our employees,” said Joyce Thomson. “A new module covers the topic from a management perspective, to ensure we meet the needs of all ScottishPower employees. It will largely be our managers who need to identify and handle situations where there may be the possibility of discrimination in the workplace. The module will help to reinforce our managers’ understanding of ScottishPower’s existing procedures for dealing with these kinds of situations, and raise awareness of our managers’ responsibility to avoid discrimination in the workplace.”
“Diversity and regulatory compliance are an increasing concern in the workplace, and the right solution can really challenge negatives as a result of diversity issues,” said Charles Gould, Brightwave managing director.“Our new portal solution enables a company to focus on how the issues really affect it and to portray that to employees so they will feel that the company is making a positive step to avoiding discrimination.”
The package developed for ScottishPower was created using a generic discrimination course, which has been developed to enable organisations to purchase a programme that meets and tracks legislation requirements, as well as saving on the cost of developing a bespoke course. The portal, which contains generic discrimination content, can be customised using an organisation’s brand guidelines. Additional features are also available.
