Equality Act 2010 and its impact on gender pay gap at Smith Brothers

This report presents a comprehensive analysis of the Equality Act 2010 and its impact on gender pay gaps within Smith Brothers (Contracting) Ltd. It begins with an introduction highlighting the importance of employee legislation and diversity in the workplace. The report outlines the project's aims, objectives, and a detailed project management plan, including cost estimations, scope definition, timelines, quality considerations, communication strategies, risk assessments, and resource allocation. A Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and Gantt chart are included for project scheduling and management. The report details the research methodology, employing both qualitative and quantitative approaches, data collection methods (primary and secondary), and sampling techniques. The findings of the research are presented, along with an evaluation of the data using appropriate tools and techniques. Based on the data analysis, recommendations are provided to address the gender pay gap and promote equality and diversity within the company. Finally, the report includes a reflection on the value of undertaking the research and draws conclusions based on the findings, supported by relevant references.

Managing a Successful
Business Project
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Table of Contents
TOPIC..............................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................3
P1 Aims and objectives of project..............................................................................................3
P2 Project management plan.......................................................................................................4
P3 WBS and Gantt Chart............................................................................................................6
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................8
P4 Small research by using appropriate research methods.........................................................8
LO 3...............................................................................................................................................10
P5 Evaluation of research data using tools and techniques.......................................................10
P6 Recommendations based on data analysis...........................................................................18
LO 4...............................................................................................................................................18
P7 Reflection on the value of undertaking the research............................................................18
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................21
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................22
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TOPIC
“To determine how Equality Act, 2010 help in establishing equality and diversity in
workplace so that gender pay gap can be reduced.” A study on Smith Brothers (Contracting) Ltd.
INTRODUCTION
For a business to remain successful in market it is important that it follows all the
employee legislations so that it can work under legal framework of country and also win the trust
of workers which is important to increase their productiveness. Equality Act, 2010 legally
protects people from getting discriminated on the basis of characters like age, religion, caste,
disability, gender etc. Also it is important to maintain a diverse workforce in organisation so that
their ideas and innovative skills can help gaining a competitive advantage in market. Equal job
opportunities and fairness for employees is important so that their work performance can be
enhanced by improving the quality of working conditions in company (Abankina And et. al.,
2016). This report is based on Smith Brothers (Contracting) Ltd. which is a medium sized
company located in UK and was founded by Richard and John Smith in 1999. The company
specialises in high and low voltage power generation and distribution systems and operates in
many parts of UK. The company is facing issues in company due to rising internal conflicts
among workers due to difference in payments for similar work done by employees. This project
report will help the company to establish rules of Equality Act, 2010 in an efficient manner and
reduce gender pay gap. In this report various tools and techniques used by researcher along with
their interpretations will be discussed along with the application of project management plan so
as to achieve project objectives.
LO 1
P1 Aims and objectives of project
A project is a series of activities which are to be completed in a systematic manner and
within the time limit so that desired outcomes can be achieved. It involves all the practices of
initiating, executing, controlling and completing the project so that the team works within a set
frame so that project gets completed on time. This project is based on application of Equality
Act, 2010 to Smith Brothers (Contracting) Ltd. so that gender pay gap in company can be
reduced which will help in dealing with internal conflicts of workers. It will also empower
women in company which is important to build a strong brand image (Abel and Deitz, 2015).
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Aim: “To determine how Equality Act, 2010 help in establishing equality and diversity in
workplace so that gender pay gap can be reduced.” A study on Smith Brothers (Contracting) Ltd.
Objectives:
 To determine the negative impact of gender pay gap with 1 month.
 To evaluate that equal pay will help in increasing employee performance by 25%.
 To determine the ways in which equality and diversity can be established in company
within 2 months.
Questions:
 What are the negative impacts of gender pay gap?
 How does equal payments help in enhancing employee performance?
 What are the ways in which equality and diversity can be established in workplace?
P2 Project management plan
A project management plan is a written document which give details about each elements
that are important for completing the project on time and in an efficient manner. It give details
about the way in which project will be monitored, controlled and executed so that all the tasks
can be completed in a systematic manner to achieve desired objectives of project (Ahamed, Wen
and Gupta, 2019). The main elements of a project management plan are:
 Cost: Cost is the most important element of a project which needs to be estimated
accurately so that the resources that are required for conducting the project in an efficient
manner can be acquired and the tools and techniques can be effectively used. Cost plays
an important role in completing the project successfully so that the desired objectives can
be achieved. Cost estimation help in appropriately distributing total cost among all the
activities which are to be performed while completing the project efficaciously. The
project cost estimation for this project is:
Particulars Amount
Cost required for tools and techniques £100
Training and development programmes £150
Collection of data £100
Miscellaneous Expenses £300
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Total Cost £650 Scope: Scope relates to all the deliverables and features of project so that desired results
are achieved within a set frame of time utilising the limited resources which are available.
Project scope needs to be determined so that the worth of starting a project as against its
benefits can be analysed. The scope of this project is wide as it will help in increasing
inclusiveness and diversity in workplace which also deal with gender pay gap (Boesveld,
2020). Time: It relates to determining the total estimated time which will be required to
complete the project in an efficient manner so that all the deliverables of project are
achieved. It includes the total time which will be required to form a team, collect required
data, interpretation of data, application of results in company so that the project
objectives are achieved. The total estimated time that will be require to complete the
project will be 3 months. Quality: It is related to collection of information from authentic and reliable sources so
that high quality of project can be maintained so that the objectives of project can be
achieved. Also the results of a quality project can be efficaciously applied which will
align with the goals and objectives of company. It is important that the researcher ensures
that the quality of project is high so that gender pay gap in Smith Brothers (Contracting)
Ltd. can be reduced (Bowl, 2018). Communication: This is another important element of project as effective
communication needs to be established which will help in effective flow of information
among the team members so that they can remain updated about the progress of the
project. It also help in coordinating and aligning the work of all team members which is
important to complete the work on time and in an efficient manner. Various methods of
communication that can be used by researcher are video-chats, messages, e-mails etc. so
that all the project members can be kept connected. Risk: These are the uncertain events whose occurrence can effect the project and it not
not achieve the desired results. It is important that the risk of project is estimated so that
the negative impact of these risks can be minimized which will help in completion of
project on time. General risks that can be faced by researcher are shortage of funds, time,
inappropriate availability of tools and techniques etc. The researcher must remain aware
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about these risk so that timely actions can be taken to decrease the overall impact on the
project.
 Resources: All the tangible and intangible assets which will be required to complete the
project in desired manner are termed as resources. These resources need to be efficiently
utilised by the researcher so that their potential can be fully used to complete the project
so that valuable results are achieved. 3 laptops, 5 cell phones, 1 office, 1 printer, 6 team
members etc. will be required to complete the project.
P3 WBS and Gantt Chart
Gantt chart: It is a type of bar chart representation that defines the complete schedule of
project and its completion time. It relates the dependency of the different activities that are
performed within a project with ongoing status of the project. It helps in managing the schedule
project and also controls the different activities that affects the required time and resources of the
project. It also provides the graphical representation of the schedule project that is helpful to
control, plan and coordinate different task of the project (Davis, Frolova and Callahan, 2016).
There are different factors of Gantt chart that is list of task, time period of task, date of
completion, assigned resources etc.
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Work break down structure(WBS): It is a structure that breaks the project into
different slots according to the orientation of delivery. It is major key factor of the project that
manages the different task of the team into several sections to measure the effective and efficient
outcome. This tool is used to get the successful result and for that the project is been distributed
to several segment and assign to those who perform it with even more effective manner. That is
most helpful and required structure by which the required time of project is reduced and that help
to achieve the target in an effective manner (de Los Reyes, 2016).
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Diversity and
Equality
Introduction LO1
Aim
Objectives
Project
Management Plan
LO2
Conduct Small
Scale Research
LO3
Findings and
Analysis
Conclusion and
Recommendations LO4
Reflective
Statement
References
Books
Journal Articles
Appendix

LO 2
P4 Small research by using appropriate research methods
Research is the systematic study of different facts and figures in order to get some result
and a different conclusion. This is done by researcher so that a new outcome can be achieved
after the analysis of all the different facts and activities that are related to the research. There are
different approaches to conduct a research that are as follows as:
Qualitative approach: It is a method by which the non-numerical data has been gathered.
This research includes the definition, meaning, concepts and doesn't includes the numbers and
values of the researched data. From this approach the data is collected by conducting
questionnaires, survey, polls, interactions etc.
Quantitative approach: It is a systematic gathering of the data that is conducted by
statistics, computational techniques. This research collects the data's from sampling techniques,
online surveys, observation etc. and the result is collected in the form of counts (Healy, 2015).
Sources of data collection: Primary: This is the method of research in which the data is collected on very first time
and that is collected by conducting survey, interviews, interactions, pools etc. It is very
time consuming and expensive research as it is conducted for the first time thus need
maximum resources.
 Secondary: This is the method of the research in which the data is collected from the
already published data as like from journals, magazines, books etc. It is a very convenient
process as takes less cost and less expensive also includes the lot of generalised
knowledge (Hutchinson, Mack and Verhoeven, 2017).
Sampling: It is a process in which out of a given large population a small portion is
selected which is called a sample and the research methods are used on the chosen sample so that
the results that are drawn are then applied to the complete population size. Samples are selected
based on common characteristics or features of same population. Sampling helps in reducing
time consumption and also saves costs. In this project researcher use a sample size of 30
respondents by the way of non-random sampling method. Following questionnaire will help in
collection of data from the sample population:
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Questionnaire
Quantitative questions:
Q1) Do you know what is gender pay gap?
a) Yes
b) No
Q2) Do you think that equality and diversity in place of work are important?
a) Yes
b) No
Q3) What are the importance of equality and diversity at workplace?
a) Increase employee retention
b) Work performance increases
Q4) Why is Equality Act, 2010 important for companies?
a) Protects from discrimination
b) Equal opportunities to all
Q5) How does gender pay gap affect company?
a) Increases conflicts among workers
b) Demoralises employees
c) Brand image gets affected
Q6) What are the threats that company face if there is no equality in company?
a) No innovation
b) No progress of company
c) Unsatisfied employees
Qualitative questions:
Q7) The ways in which equality and diversity can be established in Smith Brothers
(Contracting) Ltd.
a) Training and development programmes
b) Equal opportunities
c) Create diversity friendly polices
Q8) How can equal pay be applied in company?
a) Performance based rewards
b) Equal pay for equal work
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c) Women empowerment
Q9) What are the reasons for gender pay gap in company?
a) Education
b) Work Experiences
c) Male chauvinism
Q10) How is gender pay gap affecting Smith Brothers (Contracting) Ltd. in accomplishing
set targets?
a) Decreased motivation among workers
b) Increased protests
c) Decreased productivity
Q11) Any suggestions?
LO 3
P5 Evaluation of research data using tools and techniques
Q1) Do you know what is gender pay gap? Frequency
a) Yes 20
b) No 10
a) Yes b) No
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
20
10
Frequency
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From this data it can be interpreted that out of the 30 employees of company only 20 are
aware about the concept of gender pay gap which means there are a lot of employees who are
unaware about the impact of unequal payment based on gender. This also means that most
employees are unaware that they are not being treated fairly on the basis of Equality Act, 2010.
This is the reason due to which most employees are not raising their voice against the
discrimination done.
Q2) Do you think that equality and diversity in place of work are
important?
Frequency
a) Yes 20
b) No 10
a) Yes b) No
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
20
10
Frequency
From this graph it can be interpreted that out of 30 respondents only 20 agree that
equality and diversity are important in an organisation which means that people there are many
employees in the company who are unaware that they are given unequal opportunities to grow
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and develop. Also they are unaware that due to lack of diversity there can be more chances for
company to grow and expand its business (Johnstone and Tan, 2015).
Q3) What are the importance of equality and diversity at
workplace?
Frequency
a) Increase employee retention 15
b) Work performance increases 15
a) Increase employee retention b) Work performance increases
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16 15 15
Frequency
From this graph it can be interpreted that out of the 30respondents, 15 say that equality
and diversity at workplace can help in increasing employee retention while the other half says
that work performance of employees will increase. This means that employees know that their
employee turnover is more and also they are not using their skills and talents optimally in the
company due to unequal and unfair treatments and also due to lack of diversity of workers
(Kirton and Greene, 2015).
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