Impact of Equality Act 2010 on Workplace Discrimination: Sports Direct

This research proposal investigates workplace discrimination at Sports Direct, focusing on the Equality Act 2010. The study aims to explore the Act's role in protecting employees from discrimination, identifying its impact, and assessing current practices. The objectives include determining the effects of discrimination on motivation, workplace atmosphere (specifically gender discrimination), and proposing strategies for improvement. The rationale highlights the importance of understanding discrimination and its prevention. The literature review examines the Equality Act 2010, types of discrimination, and their impacts on employees and business performance. The methodology employs a positivism philosophy, deductive approach, and quantitative research methods using surveys and literature reviews. The research will use a questionnaire for primary data collection, and secondary data will be collected from books, articles, and journals. The data analysis will use content analysis. The study will involve 10 employees using probability sampling, and a Gantt chart will be used to present the research timeline. The research underscores the importance of the Equality Act 2010 and its role in creating a fair and equitable workplace.

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Title: Research Title: Workplace discrimination
Research Title: An investigation into the impact of “Equality act 2010” in protecting
employees from any types of workplace discrimination. ”. A study on Sports Direct in
Shirebrook, Mansfield.
Aim :
The aim of this project is “To explore the role of “Equality act 2010” in protecting
employees from any types of workplace discrimination”. A study on Sports Direct in
Shirebrook, Mansfield.
Objectives:
 To identify the impact of Equality act 2010 at the workplace of Sports
Direct
 To determine the impact of Discrimination on workplace motivation at
Sports Direct Limited.
 To determine the impact of gender discrimination on workplace
atmosphere of Sports Direct.
 To assess the current practices and propose strategies that can improve the
issue of Discrimination in the workplace of Sports Direct.
(A)Rationale:
(B)Research
The rationale for the selection of this topic is to establish an understanding of the types
of Discrimination and their effects in the workplace of companies or organisation, both
private and public. Another main reason for choosing this topic is to analyse different
strategies or practices for preventing the issue of Discrimination (Berrey, Nelson and
Nielsen, 2017). ). Another reason behind the selection of this topic is to ascertain the
impact of discrimination on organisational working and level of motivation within the
employees. Also, want to gain the information that how this will emerge the situation
of office politics and bad working atmosphere.
 What is the impact of Equality act 2010 at the workplace of Sports Direct?
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Questions:
(C)Significance
of the
research;
(D) Literature
review:
 What is the impact of Discrimination on workplace motivation at Sports
Direct?
 What is the impact of gender discrimination on workplace atmosphere of
Sports Direct?
 What are the current practices that help in eliminating the issue of
Discrimination in the workplace of Sports Direct?
This research is essential at academic as well as practical level. Academically, this
research support students by increasing their knowledge about the significance of
Equality act 2010 in the workplace. Practically, by the time this research is complete,
it will support societies, organisations, and individuals by providing them useful
information about the impact of workplace discrimination and its implications for
business as well as employees performances. . This help the organisation in
application of the strategies that remove inequality, support the society in creating trust
over organisational activities and help employees in improving motivation and
engagement at workplace (DeSouza, Wesselmann, and Ispas, 2017).
Literature review is an essential section of research because it helps in collecting the
secondary type of information from various sources such as magazines, articles, books
and many other useful sources that are relevant to the current study. This section will
help me in identifying the literature gaps in the previous survey. Within the present
study, the main weakness is the impact of workplace discrimination. In the previous
study, there is data about workplace discrimination impact. Still, there appears to be a
lack of information about the significance of Equality act 2010 in preventing such type
of issue in the workplace (Dhanani, Beus and Joseph 2018). For overcoming this gap,
research questions will be used; below are some of the questions:
What is the impact of Equality act 2010 at the workplace of Sports Direct?
According to the Bryson (2017), equality act 2010 is a type of law that provides a legal
framework to protect the rights of an individual and advance Equality of opportunity
to all. There are different characteristics that are protected by the Equality act 2010.
Names of these characteristics are age, gender reassignment, race, disability, marriage
and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, sex, sexual orientation, religion or
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belief. These are the main characteristics that are also known as types of
Discrimination. At the workplace of Sports Direct, Equality act 2010 plays an
important role by protecting employees from any kind of Discrimination. This act will
also support an individual by providing equal opportunities in employment or work.
As per the view presented by Lindsay and et. al., (2019), Currently, the situation of
gender discrimination is visible in the Sports Direct. This will have eradicated from
the effective use of Equality Act 2010 practices where, not allowed to discriminate on
any of the above mentioned criterion. In this regard, the practice of supervision will be
used by an organisation along with taking hard decisions.
What are the impacts of Discrimination at the workplace of Sports Direct?
As per the opinion of Harness ((2019), different types of Discrimination can take
place in the workplace, such as gender discrimination, age discrimination etc. This
Discrimination has a negative impact on employees as well as business performance.
Initially, it diminishes the level of employee's trust. The level of distrust impacts over
performance as no one is prepared to help each other as well as wants to meet their
own targets. This decrease the creativity levels within employee's performance that
outputted into release of bad results as well as non-attainment of organisational goals
and objectives. Secondly, this Discrimination impacts the engagement and confidence
level of workers. Therefore, Discrimination has a negative impact on the workplace of
Sports Direct. There are different types of discrimination that done on various basis
such as gender, colour, age, religion etc. The study of all within an organisation is
must because all have negative impact over motivational level.
What is the impact of gender discrimination on workplace atmosphere of Sports
Direct?
According to the Dickens, Womack and Dimes, (2019), The presence of gender
discrimination is common within all organisation. The same is visible in Sports Direct.
This is the discrimination on the basis gender i.e. male and female. Here, different
benefits are provided by an organisation to one specific gender irrespective to other
while they are working on same post or same work. This has the direct negative
impact over the workplace atmosphere of an organisation where employees get
demotivates that the practices of management are not worthy enough for attaining
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growth within an organisation. This resultant into creation of negative office polices
where everyone wants to grab the position through creating good bond with leaders.
What are the current practices that help in eliminating the issue of Discrimination in
the workplace of Sports Direct?
According to Mazzotta (2019), there are certain current practices that will help Sports
Direct in reducing the negative effects of workplace discrimination. These practices
are the development of training, diversity and inclusion working environment,
effective communication etc. All these are main practices used by Sports Direct to
protect their workforce from any type of Discrimination. For example, The top
management of Sports Direct created a separate team that emphasis over the
completion of business activities or tasks on the basis of policies and standards. This
makes sure that entire workers are treading fairly or equally as per the various laws
present in different countries—this assist to enhance the performance too as well as
reduction of Discrimination in the workplace.
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(E) Research
Methodolo
gy
There are different methods and approaches that will be applied for conducting current
research in an effective manner. There are some methods that are explained below:
Research Philosophy: This section of research methodology has two different types
which named are interpretivisim and positivism. Both are main types of research
philosophy but for performing current study, positivism philosophy has been used
because it facilitates researcher to collect and analysis quantitative data in minimum
time period (Graham and et. al., 2019). On the other side, interpretivisim philosophy is
not appropriate for conducting this investigation because it requires qualitative data as
well as also take more time.
Research approach: There are Two approaches which are inductive and deductive.
Within a current study, deductive approach has been applied by researcher because it
is useful in analysing of quantitative information easily. On the other side, inductive
approach is not appropriate because it is based on qualitative gathered data and also
takes more sources (Marchiondo, Gonzales and Williams, 2019).
Choice of the research: In order to gather data, there are mainly two choice of the
research which named are qualitative and quantitative. For collecting data about the
role of Equality act 2010 in preventing any type of Discrimination at the workplace,
the quantitative research will be applied because it does not consume maximum time
and also provide numerical data as compare to qualitative research (Padela and et al.,
2016).
Research methods: There are number of research methods which are interviews,
survey, case study research, systematic literature review etc. All these are main
research methods but according to the present study, survey and systematic literature
review has been used. Systematic literature review is used for collecting secondary
data and survey i.e. questionnaire has been used for gathering primary data (Brown
and et. al., 2019).
Data collection: There are two sources that will be useful in collecting information
about the study. Name of these sources is primary and secondary. The questionnaire is
a part of primary sources that had been applied for collecting quantitative data about
workplace discrimination. On the other hand, books, articles, journals etc. are
secondary sources that have been followed for managing secondary data for literature
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review. Therefore, both methods of data collection have been followed within a study
(Rosenblat and et al. 2017).
Research instruments: There are a lot of research instruments which are interview,
questionnaire, focus group, modelling etc. All these are essential but questionnaire has
been applied for collecting primary data about the workplace discrimination because it
support in gathering of quantitative data without taking more time (Triana and et. al.,
2019).
Sampling: 10 employees of Sports Direct will be selected randomly under a
probability sampling technique. This an effective method for the current study because
this won't take extra time and also helps the researcher to choose an appropriate
number of sample size on a random basis (Stypinska and Turek, 2017).
Data analysis methods: There are basically two methods of analysing data which are
quantitative and qualitative. Current research is based on quantitative data and for
analysing such type of information, content analysis as an analytical technique of
research has been applied. In this technique, researcher will require to make some
themes that help them in analysing of quantitative information easily (Resnick and
Galupo, 2019).
Time horizon: the researcher will apply the Gantt chart for presenting each activity or
task of research apart from their starting and closing data (Vickers, 2016). Gantt chart,
according to this research, will be presented as below:
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(F)Sources of
Informatio
n
Books and journals
Berrey, E., Nelson, R. L. and Nielsen, L. B., 2017. Rights on trial: How workplace
discrimination law perpetuates inequality. University of Chicago Press.
Bryson, A., 2017. Pay equity after the Equality Act 2010: does sexual orientation still
matter?. Work, employment and society. 31(3). pp.483-500.
DeSouza, E. R., Wesselmann, E. D. and Ispas, D., 2017. Workplace Discrimination
against Sexual Minorities: Subtle and not‐so‐subtle. Canadian Journal of
Administrative Sciences/Revue Canadienne des Sciences de
l'Administration. 34(2). pp.121-132.
Dhanani, L. Y., Beus, J. M. and Joseph, D .L., 2018. Workplace discrimination: A
meta‐analytic extension, critique, and future research agenda. Personnel
Psychology. 71(2). pp.147-179.
Padela, A. I. and et. al., 2016. Religious identity and workplace discrimination: A
national survey of American Muslim physicians. AJOB Empirical Bioethics.
7(3). pp.149-159.
Rosenblat, A., Levy, K. E., Barocas, S. and Hwang, T., 2017. Discriminating tastes:
Uber's customer ratings as vehicles for workplace discrimination. Policy &
Internet. 9(3). pp.256-279.
Stypinska, J. and Turek, K., 2017. Hard and soft age discrimination: the dual nature of
workplace discrimination. European journal of ageing. 14(1). pp.49-61.
Vickers, L., 2016. Religious freedom, religious Discrimination and the workplace.
Bloomsbury Publishing.
Graham, K. M. and et. al., 2019. Patterns of workplace discrimination across broad
categories of disability. Rehabilitation psychology. 64(2). p.194.
Marchiondo, L. A., Gonzales, E. and Williams, L. J., 2019. Trajectories of perceived
workplacee age discrimination and long-term associations with mental, self-
rated, and occupational health. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B. 74(4).
pp.655-663.
Brown, J. and et. al., 2019. Workplace harassment and discrimination in gynecology:
results of the AAGL Member Survey. Journal of minimally invasive
gynecology. 26(5). pp.838-846.
Triana, M. D. C. and et. al., 2019. Perceived workplace gender discrimination and
employee consequences: a meta-analysis and complementary studies
considering country context. Journal of management. 45(6). pp.2419-2447.
Resnick, C. A. and Galupo, M. P., 2019. Assessing experiences with LGBT
microaggressions in the workplace: Development and validation of the
microaggression experiences at work scale. Journal of homosexuality. 66(10).
pp.1380-1403.
Dickens, D. D., Womack, V. Y. and Dimes, T., 2019. Managing hypervisibility: An
exploration of theory and research on identity shifting strategies in the
workplace among Black women. Journal of Vocational Behavior. 113. pp.153-
163.
Lindsay, S. and et. al., 2019. Disability disclosure and workplace accommodations
among youth with disabilities. Disability and rehabilitation. 41(16). pp.1914-
1924.
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Online
Harness. J., 2019. Effect of Discrimination in the workplace. [Online]. Available
through:< https://bizfluent.com/about-5035338-effects-discrimination-
workplace.html>
Mazzotta. A. R., 2019. Ways to avoid Discrimination in the workplace. [Online].
Available through:< https://www.armazzotta.com/blog/2017/03/21/5-ways-
avoid-discrimination-at-work/>
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