Why Being Fair in the Workplace Means Treating People Differently

I was brought up to know that life is not fair. It certainly is not – I was born into a situation where, despite plenty of hard times, I have always had food to eat and somewhere warm and dry to live. Millions around the world would love what I have had, and none of us got a choice in where and when we were born.

Yet just because life is inherently unfair, it does not in any way mean that we should make no effort to treat each other fairly. We all know that there is much about life that nobody can control, but that does not mean that we should not do the best we can where we do have a choice.

Diversity and inclusion are all about treating people fairly. But many organisations seem to beieve that this means treating everybody the same. This is a huge mistake.

When children are growing up, we do not treat them all the same. We do not provide every child between 1 and 18 years of age with clothes of the same size and design and tell them to get on with it. We generally do not teach children of all ages all together and chastise the 5-year-olds for struggling with calculus. We do not expect 18-year-olds to spend the day sitting on those tiny little chairs designed for kindergarten.

We treat children according to their individual needs. Some of this is based on generalisations about their age and stage of development, but it goes much further. A good school will provide supplementary lessons for children struggling in a subject, and other teaching for those who excel to stretch them. It will recognise that some love sport and provide them with opportunities in that area, while encouraging others to develop their talents for music or engineering. A school that treated all children the same would quickly fail.

So why do we take an entirely different approach in the workplace? I have read recently of HR policies justified by the argument that it would be unfair not to treat everybody in the same way. This could not be further from the truth. It is unfair not to treat everybody according to their needs and situation.

What is so frustrating is that employers recognise this to some degree, even if they do not realise it. They provide specialist software for those with challenges with their vision. They make different chairs available for those who are particularly tall or who have back problems. Yet when it comes to other areas, they hide behind the claim that it would be unfair to treat people in different ways.

Equality is great, but it takes no account of the different needs of individuals. It is more of a notional concept than a workable practice. What is needed is equity, where everyone is treated according to their individual strengths and needs. We are all very different in so many ways, so this will not mean treating everybody the same, or anything close to it.

Let’s take a couple of workplace examples. Equality means allowing everyone the opportunity to apply for vacancies. But equity means taking steps to ensure that all who apply have the best chance to show why they are the best candidate for the job. This could include different ways of applying, and different selection procedures. We would not expect someone in a wheelchair to climb a flight of stairs to get to the interview room – we would relocate the interview to a place that they could access. Yet we make no provision for candidates who may be brilliant at the job but really struggle with interviews, because they are neurodivergent, for example. There are lots of ways to be more inclusive in recruitment, which I will pick up separately, but insisting on asking all candidates the same questions in the same way in the same place is not being fair, it is giving an advantage to those best suited for that style of selection.

What about workplace design? Modern offices often claim to provide a range of different areas and facilities, but do they really? If you want to spend your day moving from meeting to meeting, networking constantly and working by talking to others, you are probably very well provided for.

But if you have sensory challenges, or prefer a quiet space to think, the options tend to be much more limited. There is an easy solution here – let those that prefer to do so work from home as much as they like. Insisting that everyone attended the office x days a week is not being fair, it is favouring those who work best in the office. They will then stand out as top performers and progress faster than others, as opposed to spending their lives struggling to perform in an environment that does not suit them just to be “fair”.

What is most unfortunate in both these examples is that the people who lose out from the “fairness” of treating everyone the same tend to be those who are different from the majority. They may be disabled, neurodivergent, or members of other minority groups. How can being fair to these people possibly mean ignoring challenges that they already face ever day through no fault of their own?

It is surely a basic human right that everyone gets the best chance to use their talents and abilities to the maximum, and that is best for the organisation where they work as well. Why are we so keen to stop this in the name of the utterly misguided notion of being fair?