Jefferson Locke’s purpose revolves around the value people bring to the world through their unique perspectives and experiences. Our dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) enhances our ability to advise clients effectively and ensures greater representation within our own workplace. By embracing diversity, we foster creativity; through equity, we empower diverse talent and ideas; and with inclusion, we cultivate a culture that celebrates differences and encourages authenticity.
This statement sets out our ambition and monitoring process for ensuring that we operate in a way that reflects our approach to diversity, equity and inclusion as part of our core business.
Introduction
DE&I at Jefferson Locke
Our commitment to DE&I, for both our clients and ourselves, is led from the top—our groups’ board of directors, CEO, and leadership team. Our culture is rooted in values developed by these leaders and embodied by our teams daily. We aim to build an open, inclusive, and dedicated culture where people feel fulfilled and trust their colleagues and partners. We believe this kind of environment nurtures a successful, productive, and happy team.
In today’s globally interconnected marketplace, having an equitable, inclusive organization and access to a diverse workforce is crucial. We understand that our diversity as an employer strengthens our ability to offer a wide range of perspectives to our clients. Therefore, we are committed to creating a workforce that mirrors the communities we serve at every level.
We take pride in our ongoing efforts to advance DE&I, always prioritizing our people. Through the entire group we embody our people-first philosophy, providing safe spaces for employees to celebrate affinity and community, while also giving the firm insight into their needs. We invest significantly in mentorship, training other professional growth and development training programmes to ensure support every step of the way.
We want everyone at Jefferson Locke to feel part of our mission to promote DE&I, to actively engage in it, and to reap the benefits of these efforts. Ultimately, diversity is about all of us—and it always should be.
People
Our commitment to you
Jefferson Locke is committed to diversity and will promote diversity for all employees, workers, freelancers, contractors and applicants and shall adhere to such a policy at all times. Jefferson Locke aims to treat everyone equally irrespective of sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, age, disability, colour, race, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, political beliefs or membership or non-membership of a Trade Union or spent convictions, (“Protected Characteristics”) and places an obligation upon all staff to respect and act in accordance with this policy.
Jefferson Locke aims to ensure that its employees comply with proper equal opportunities practice and reviews on an on-going basis all aspects of its recruitment processes to avoid unlawful or undesirable discrimination.
Unlawful discrimination occurs in the following circumstances:
- Direct discrimination: treating someone less favourably because of a Protected Characteristic. For example, rejecting a job applicant because of their religious views or because they might be gay.
- Indirect discrimination: a provision, criterion or practice that applies to everyone but adversely affects people with a particular Protected Characteristic more than others, and is not justified. For example, requiring a job to be done full-time rather than part-time would adversely affect women because they generally have greater childcare commitments than men. Such a requirement would be discriminatory unless it can be justified.
- Harassment: this includes sexual harassment and other unwanted conduct related to a Protected Characteristic, which has the purpose or effect of violating someone’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them. Harassment is dealt with further in our Anti-harassment and Bullying Policy.
- Victimisation: retaliation against someone who has complained or has supported someone else’s complaint about discrimination or harassment.
- Disability discrimination: this includes direct and indirect discrimination, any unjustified less favourable treatment because of the effects of a disability, and failure to make reasonable adjustments to alleviate disadvantages caused by a disability.
It is unlawful for a recruitment consultancy to discriminate against a person on the grounds of a protected category:
- In the terms on which the recruitment consultancy offers to provide any of its services;
- By refusing or deliberately omitting to provide any of its services;
- In the way it provides any of its services.
Discrimination would also occur if a business accepted and acted upon a job registration from an employer which states that certain persons are unacceptable due to a Protected Characteristic, unless one of the exceptions applies, for instance, the job demands a genuine occupational requirement or in the case of age, the discrimination can be lawfully justified.
Jefferson Locke shall not discriminate unlawfully when deciding which candidate, worker, freelancer and contractor is submitted for a vacancy or assignment, or when setting any terms of employment or engagement for such workers. Jefferson Locke will ensure that each candidate is assessed only in accordance with the candidate’s merits, qualifications and abilities to perform the relevant duties required by the particular vacancy.
We will not accept instructions from clients that indicate an intention to discriminate unlawfully.
The Jefferson Group and its subsidiaries have in place procedures for monitoring compliance with this policy and for dealing with complaints of discrimination. Any discrimination complaint will be investigated fully.
CHANGE IS INEVITABLE, GROWTH IS OPTIONAL
Jefferson Locke is a people centric talent engagement and leadership development practice that places multi-talented disrupters that transform businesses and equips them to succeed.
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