Assessment of the initial situation 

The plan's preparation begins with an assessment, in which the organisation’s activities and operating environment are examined from the perspective of equality. This ensures that equality planning answers the organisation's main questions. 

All grounds for discrimination must be considered in the assessment 

Under the Non-Discrimination Act, no one may be discriminated against on the basis of age, origin, nationality, language, religion, belief, opinion, political activity, trade union activity, family relationships, state of health, disability, sexual orientation or other personal characteristics. These personal characteristics are called grounds of discrimination and must all be taken into account in the equality assessment. 

Gather information about equality in your organisation 

You can use information already available in the organisation, such as personnel surveys and customer feedback – not to mention data protection-related matters, to assess the initial situation.

Some aspects related to discrimination and inappropriate incidents do not necessarily come up unless specifically asked about. It is therefore advisable to carry out a separate equality assessment and request responses from various parties, such as the personnel, stakeholders and customers, depending on the situation.  

Examples of good data collection practices: 

  • a survey on how equality and non-discrimination are taken into account in existing strategies and guidelines 
  • equality surveys for the personnel and customers 
  • statistics and materials describing the operating environment and customer base 
  • statistics and materials concerning the personnel 
  • indicators describing the quality of operations and other performance management data 
  • customer feedback 
  • complaints concerning operations 
  • consultations with different groups 
  • the organisation's equality plan 
  • other separate assessments, such as accessibility surveys 

Model for personnel survey