Britain has never been more diverse and the need for organisations to recognise and manage equality and diversity issues has never been more prevalent. Yet many organisations are still standing firmly behind the starting line even though they realise they are being left behind.

Back in the 1980s equality was, for many organisations, a matter of race and gender issues. In the early part of this decade there was a rush to train managers to comply with the (by then established) gender and race discrimination laws.

Never ask a woman if she intends to have children during a job interview, said many training officers of the time. Why not? replied many 1980s male managers.

While it can be argued that things have moved on considerably in the last 20 years, more often than not this is not the case. In reality, many organisations (large, small, public, private etc) still remain confused as to what is required of them within this area and why they need to do anything in the first place.

Not everything that can be measured is important and not everything that is important can be measured. An undeniable aspect of 21st-century working is measurement. Seemingly everything that is capable of being measured nowadays is. The measurements that are made within organisations are, more often than not, analysed, placed into a league table or graph and duly offered as a statistic to indicate either performance or opportunity for improvement.

In some cases this may well be a good thing but as a result, an average worker, within all sectors of UK business (including voluntary and not for profit) may find themselves analysing targets, measures and key performance indicators as part of their daily working lives.

However, in this world of if it counts you can count it certain important issues that are not always as easy to count can often be overlooked. While it is almost impossible to measure, not all employees feel fully included and therefore do not fully contribute.

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