ABSTRACT
Within EO policy, organisations typically produced a statement setting out their
intention to be or become an ‘equal opportunity employer’. Some employers did no
more than this (Liff, 1995), whilst others developed a policy with clearly articulated
aims and objectives. Whatever form they took, EO policies became widely criticised
for their failure to deliver equality of outcome. In Chapter 4, we explored organisa-
tional culture, which can help reveal why liberal, bureaucratic EO policies had limited
impact on outcomes. It is now widely accepted that formal equality and diversity
policies are unreliable indicators of the actual practices, beliefs and values towards
equality and diversity issues within organisations. Most UK organisations now use the term diversity within their policy title; for example ‘diversity policy’, ‘managing
diversity policy’ and ‘equality and diversity policy’ are some of the newer labels that
have replaced EO (Greene and Kirton, 2009). The main focus of this chapter is to
examine present and emerging developments in employer equality and diversity
policy approaches. The term EO policy is used here to mean the traditional approach
to equality policy-making taken by most employers from the late 1970s onwards. The
term diversity management (DM) policy is used to refer to the more recent and still
emergent policy approach. This chapter begins by examining the orientation of organisational policies; we then
examine the form and content of equality and diversity policies. Finally, this chapter
considers the role of key organisational actors in the equality and diversity project.
