Equality monitoring for staff

Founded on the principles of excellence, equality and opportunity for all, the University of York is committed to improving the experience and opportunities for all staff.

To do this we need to understand the identities and characteristics of our staff. That is why we are taking a more proactive approach in encouraging colleagues to share their up-to-date equality information with us every year. By updating your records and completing any missing information, you will be helping build a truer picture of the diversity of our staff community. 

Why your data is so important

The University of York Strategy 2020-2030 (PDF , 1,356kb) envisages a future where “our academic and professional services staff mirror the diversity of the student body. We eliminate gender, disability and ethnicity pay gaps.” In order to achieve these goals we need to build a deeper understanding of our diverse workforce.

We are extending the equality monitoring information on your MyView page by adding questions on sex, trans history, whether the gender you identify with matches your sex at birth and whether you were born in the UK. We’ve also updated the range of responses to a number of other monitoring questions.

Sharing your responses to this range of questions, will help create a much richer picture of the makeup of our staff community. In turn, that information can be used to tailor support systems and policies and highlight any issues of under-representation in certain areas or roles. Your data is also absolutely essential in calculating pay gaps, the more we understand about our pay gaps, the more targeted action we can take to eliminate them.

We recognise that the information we ask you to provide may be sensitive and you may not wish to share this with us at this moment in time. You will see there is a 'prefer not to say' option to all questions, that in itself is important for us to know. 

Updating your information

To enable us to build and maintain an accurate picture of the diversity of our staff, please take a few minutes to update your information in MyView.

We understand how easy it is to overlook small tasks like this. In order to support the collection of data, staff with an incomplete record (ie where there is one or more empty data fields) will be reminded automatically to complete their record. A complete record is one where there is data in every field, which can include choosing ‘prefer not to say’ responses. 

If you have a complete record, we will contact you annually to invite you to check if any parts of your data need updating.

You can update your information by:

1. Logging in to MyView
2. Selecting 'My Equality and Diversity'
3. Updating your details using the drop-down options and select 'Update now'

What will we do with your data?

The information you provide by this method will be used solely for statistical monitoring purposes. This can include statutory returns, such as the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) staff return, that facilitate monitoring at a national level.

In order to protect the confidentiality of your data, it will only be accessible at York to a small number of staff in teams responsible for the preparation of anonymised analyses and statutory returns. Your data will not be accessible by your line manager, colleagues or department.

Please note that adding or changing your equality monitoring information ( for example your disability status) will not alert anyone automatically; in order to start the process of identifying any access, adjustments or support needs that you may have, please contact your Line Manager or HR Adviser directly.

Anonymised data will be made available to staff, including those who are involved with monitoring and/or accreditation schemes, such as the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) committee and Athena Swan working groups. Here are some examples of how this data is used:

• to identify services for staff that are appropriate for individuals’ needs, such as inclusive facilities
• to identify opportunities for inclusive action in our workplace that will help us recruit and retain a diverse and representative workforce
• ED&I committees and working groups use anonymised trend data to inform diversity initiatives and support activities for staff
• in the annual calculation of the gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps: if we are to take meaningful action to eliminate our pay gaps we need comprehensive and up-to-date data to calculate and understand them
• in the preparation of a statutory staff return for HESA. This includes equality monitoring data where it is mandated by HESA. This means that in 2022-23, data on age, disability, ethnicity, gender identity, legal sex, sexual orientation, and religion and belief will be supplied to HESA for eligible staff (currently, only academic staff data is returned to HESA)
  • As this is a change from previous years (when data on gender identity, religion or belief and sexual orientation was not mandatory and was therefore not supplied), we will only supply data on these three fields where you have supplied or updated that data since 18 September 2023
  • From 2023-24, we will include in our HESA staff return any EDI data held by the University that is mandated by the HESA. This will include data on gender identity, religion or belief and sexual orientation, and could include other fields that HESA may require in future, such as marital status. Any staff who don’t want this or any other data on personal characteristics to be returned to HESA have until August 2024 to remove it from their employee record
• To understand trends that could inform the development of key university policy and/or data. This might be related to a particular minoritised community or a disability/health related condition.

Legal information

We have carefully considered the data protection implications of this data collection activity, consulted the University's Data Protection Officer and conducted a Data Protection Impact Assessment to explore and address data protection risks.

Find out more about how the University uses data and upholds your rights.