Eliminate gender bias and discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, potential pregnancy and breastfeeding

Pre-empt and prevent the negative impact of the
human factor in your workplace

Section B explored a range of things that can go wrong despite the existence of EO policies and programs, as well as different ways to manage, and pre-empt the negative human factors that can compromise or fully negate workplace systems and intentions to provide EO.

Take a positive approach to eliminating gender bias and discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, potential pregnancy and breastfeeding, by determining what processes need to be introduced or tightened-up in your workplace, to eliminate the negative impact of human factors.

Consider this checklist below and grow your awareness of the many guises human bias can take, for example:

• clients voicing their views (placing employees in a difficult situation) when the situation in question is not relevant to the service they are being provided with;
• work functions that include clients and partners operating along professional lines, which means EO principles apply;
• while the company policy says it adheres to EO law, people don’t understand what that actually means in practice and the range of choices it provides some women fail to support other women’s choices, and assume their own views and experiences to be the most appropriate;
• failure to discuss, map and formalise (as early as possible) return to work plans after childbirth;
• management inconsistency due to the lack of information available to managers and employees;
• assumptions made about primary carers, and assumed levels of involvement prior to the birth, inform policy;
• impact on an individual who is deemed to be abusing the system, when she is actually accessing her entitlements and exercising her rights;
• comments about physical appearance changing due to pregnancy and taunts about accessing benefits designed to help manage parenting need to be understood as potential pregnancy harassment;
• secondhand information via the network being used around unusual situations;
• managers failing to review all the laws that govern workplace operations, and policies fail to provide everyone access to all the relevant data to make choices;
• first level supervisors not being well informed or making decisions that reflect personal bias and limited understanding of the complexities of EO and pregnancy laws.

Proceed to Section D - Useful Definitions
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