You want your practice and your team to portray a caring image and professionalism but what if one of your employees has tattoos or body piercings? They will have chosen these adornments because they want their individuality to come across. There are few definitive figures, anecdotally many of us will have noticed more people with visible tattoos and piercings, and surveys suggest that up to a third of people in their 30s have tattoos. As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder - some will have a conformist approach to personal style and presentability others prefer to loudly project who they are by displaying their tattoos or piercings. You can question whether this is suitably professional, in the fashion industry it may go down well but what about in the healthcare setting?
If breaking the stereotype is not for you, then as an employer you can have rules to prevent tattoos and body piercings from being visible in the workplace. Your policy on staff uniforms could include rules on visible tattoos and piercings. The only catch is that you must not discriminate against someone on the grounds of any of the characteristics protected by the Equality Act (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation). Some rules could amount to indirect discrimination - for example, a non-permanent henna body-painting could have been applied for the purpose of a religious ceremony. A requirement to remove this could be seen as indirect religious discrimination. Another example can arise with nose piercings, which are culturally significant for followers of Ayurveda and other religious and cultural traditions.
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