2019-07-14
The complainant is employed as a retail assistant with the respondent retailer. She alleged the company’s appearance standards policy, which had recently been circulated, required female employees to wear make-up and used gendered language and stereotypes. For example, she said the policy required women to wear their hair tied back, rather than requiring any employee with long hair to tie the hair back.
The company said the policy was developed in response to concerns that some staff members were not appropriately groomed. The company sells cosmetics and said it therefore wished to ensure staff were properly groomed and wore make-up.
The complaint was resolved with an agreement that the company redraft the policy to adopt less gendered language and requirements. The company undertook to send the policy to all store managers for distribution to staff. The company agreed to include an apology for any offence caused to staff by the previous policy in its email to managers.
Year
Discrimination type
Sex Discrimination Act
Grounds
Sex
Areas
Employment
Apology – Public
Revised terms and conditions
Policy change/Change in practice
Amount