I was at a senior manager’s question and answer session at the end of a two day staff equality and diversity awareness course. I didn’t see it coming but I know the sound of a bear trap snapping when I hear one. These apparently naive questions from front line staff are never hypothetical. Someone in the room had a colleague who wore black eyeliner to work. The issue had come up during the course and the trainer wishing to move the discussion on had suggested it would be a good question to ask the Director at the question and answer session.
Of course what was really behind this question was a reaction to the organisations move to be more gay friendly. On the plus side some staff were clearly more comfortable about expressing their sexuality however the more open some staff were the more it exposed the fact that as an organisation we hadn’t had to think about some issues in the past. The unofficial office dress code was smart casual except for mangers who wore suits. It was generally left to individual mangers to determine what was appropriate to wear to work but the only time it had ever been an issue was in a short lived heat wave when some staff, not just the younger ones, took to exposing too much flesh. Singlets, T-shirts and shorts were banned for men and women. When a new member of staff started showing sufficient cleavage to cause comment a female manager had a word. I don’t recall there ever being an issue about someone wearing too much make up and I wasn’t aware of any guidance. One thing I had learnt from experience was not to make up policy on the go.
Running through my mind as I tried to think of an answer was a range of scenarios that I could be presented with as follow ups. You couldn’t stop people at work forming sexual relationships but it was an unwritten rule that such a relationship between a line manager and someone they managed was inappropriate. In all cases people were expected to be discreet any open show of affection like holding hands or kissing would be extremely unprofessional. Flirting was discouraged because it got confused with sexual banter, double entendre, which had in the recent past led allegations of sexual harassment. So did these “rules” also apply to gay relationships? There were certainly a small number of staff who seemed to want to push the boundaries.
I concluded that the same rules had to be applied but that maybe in the future we needed to be more explicit about what these rules were. I also decided that black eyeliner was ok.
Blair McPherson author of An Elephant in the room- an equality and diversity training manual publish by Russell House. www.blairmcpherson.co.uk
