Mission impossible? Appearance equality at work
When I first began researching a rights-based approach to visible difference at work, I was struck by just how little publicity there had been about this issue in the professional press. HR magazines, websites and blogs were full of articles about good employment practice and equality – but there was almost nothing relating to visible difference.
The law may be partly to blame for this. Appearance is not protected under the Equality Act 2010, and the Act’s usual definition of disability relates to function. Section 6(1) of the Act says that:
“A person (P) has a disability if—
(a)P has a physical or mental impairment, and
(b)the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on P’s ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.”
Visible difference often doesn’t impact someone’s abilities or function, so many people would not fall under this definition. However, Schedule 1 of the Act contains an under-publicised section which says:
“An impairment which consists of a severe disfigurement is to be treated as having a substantial adverse effect on the ability of the person concerned to carry out normal day-to-day activities.” (Section 3(1), Sched 1).
So, provided it is long-term, a severe disfigurement may count as a disability under the Act even though the person’s abilities are not impacted. However, a lack of awareness about this aspect of the law has contributed to a lack of recognition and debate around it.
My project, generously funded by the VTCT Foundation, aimed to address this invisibility of rights in three ways. My first aim was to ensure that reliable, relevant information about rights at work was available to people with visible differences and their advisers. Working with various Appearance Collective charities, we produced guidance which you can see here and here. Together with a large law firm and the legal team of a financial institution, I also produced detailed guidance for lawyers which will soon be available one of the main databases used by lawyers. This should provide useful tools which advisers can use to represent their clients in claims relating to disfigurement discrimination.
My second aim was to produce guidance for employers about how to make appearance-inclusive workplaces where people with visible differences can perform to the best of their ability and feel valued and included. I interviewed employers to find out about their experiences and views on good practice, and created some guidance from this. The guidance was tested in focus groups of both employers and people with lived experience of visible difference. The guidance has just launched, and, working with Face Equality International, we are thrilled that LinkedIn have agreed to feature a live panel event about it on their feed. This should air in mid-September 2023 – watch this space. A roadshow of talks to employers is underway as well.
The third aspect of the project aimed to raise awareness of the problem of visible difference inequality. Again, working closely with charity partners, we made submissions to the UN Committee under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – both during a side panel at their 2023 Conference, and in a written report submitted to a UN inquiry. And I am due to meet the Equality and Human Rights Committee soon. I also had the pleasure of running a People’s Parliament workshop about appearance discrimination for the general public, as well as a conference for everyone interested in the relationship between physical appearance and the law. Raising awareness is a slow process, but I hope to keep building on these first steps.
I have been struck by two things during this project. The first is that creating appearance-equality at work doesn’t need to be difficult; there are plenty of small steps which we can all take to make a big difference. The second is the tremendous enthusiasm which the many people involved with the project in different roles have shown. For those reasons, I don’t think that appearance equality at work is a mission impossible. It is all of our mission, should we choose to accept it…
Dr Hannah Saunders
Research Fellow in Law
Queen Mary University London