Equal Employment Opportunity
What is Equal Employment Opportunity?
The Merit Principle
What are EEO groups?
What is Affirmative Action?
What is Equal Employment Opportunity?
Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) gives all people the right to be considered for any job for which they are skilled and qualified, ensuring that the best person for the job is employed. EEO is based on the principle of recruiting and promoting people on merit.
EEO also promotes a working environment free from harassment of any kind, and access for all staff to job-related opportunities, eg. training and development, promotion and reclassification.
The Merit Principle
Merit is the basis of equal employment opportunity in Australia. The merit principle aims to ensure that the best person for the job is employed. It gives all people the right to be considered for a job on the basis of their abilities, qualifications, experience, and standard of work performance.
What are EEO groups?
Particular groups of people have traditionally been disadvantaged in employment, because of discriminatory laws, rules, employment practices, stereotypes and attitudes. NSW legislation defines these groups, sometimes referred to as 'EEO groups', as
- Indigenous Australians
- people who speak a first language other than English
- women
- people with a disability
The University has a legal obligation to eliminate discrimination and harassment and to promote equality of opportunity for members of EEO groups.
What is Affirmative Action?
Members of EEO groups may not have had equal access to job opportunities or training and development for reasons such as past discrimination or prejudice, different educational experience, or being locked into low opportunity jobs. Affirmative Action (AA) strategies aim to redress these past disadvantages and improve employment outcomes for people from EEO groups. The principle of Affirmative Action acknowledges that equal treatment may not produce equal outcomes; differential treatment may be required to achieve real equity.
Examples of Affirmative Action at UTS include the Wingara Strategy to promote Indigenous employment; the inpUTS Educational Access Scheme and the Women@UTS Program.
