Great places to work
Great Place to Work May 2015 report addresses Women at Work: is it still a Man’s World?
This week my train reading has been May’s Great Place to Work review, which aims to provide an insight into men and women’s view of the workplace, with suggestions on how it could be more gender-friendly.
The full report is here, but if you don’t get a chance to read it all, here are my top 5 summary takeaway points:
- The biggest gap between number of men and women at work is in the age 35-44 bracket. This suggests that organisations looking to retain women employees should look at their child care and flexible working arrangements for the 35 to 44 age group rather than look at their maternity policies. No surprises here about this age-group but I do agree that supporting the ongoing return-to-work period is more likely to boost retention rates.
- Overall women are more positive about their workplace and jobs than men. The main themes correspond with stereotypical views of women’s priorities and most represent social and caring traits. Several of these questions relate to an appreciation of being part of a team and shows that women value and enjoy the social aspect of the workplace. This includes celebrating special events and work having a ‘family’ feeling. I have certainly noticed when talking to maternity returners specifically, that one of the key things they missed on maternity leave was the social interaction and the feeling of being part of a team.
- Women seem to have greater trust in management – they agreed more than men that management ‘know where they are going’ and ‘would only make people redundant as a last resort’. This is a difficult one to judge – my own personal experience of working with women is that they are generally pretty objective and clued-up about workplace politics.
- The gender pay gap was lowest for those in the youngest age groups, but increased with age and seniority. These findings have been widely reported in the media and they are disturbing facts about the unfairness of the workplace (including bonus payments, male directors took home on average £32,428 more than women). However, despite the widespread reporting of the gender pay gap, our results show that the majority of women still perceive their workplaces as fair. My gut feeling around this point is that ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’! Although reporting is improving, most of us never get to find out how our peers are compensated.
- Women are much less likely to ask for a pay rise with about two thirds of women having never asked for a rise. (Guardian 2010 Why Women Won’t Ask for a Pay Rise). Two thirds is a disturbingly huge number and is in line with the perception that many women find it much harder than men to regularly highlight their performance to management. Career management and coaching should be made readily available to all women in the workplace to encourage proactivity and confidence.
The report concludes with some practical actions that can be easily taken to boost gender equality:
• Women Groups and Forums
• Women Networks
• Diversity Strategy Think Tanks
• Secondary school programmes
• Enhanced maternity scheme
• Enhanced paternity scheme
• Networks for expectant mothers
• IVF guidance
• Workshops for expectant dads
• Maternity bonus per each month of maternity depending on length of service
• Keep in Touch days (at full pay) for attendance of meetings/training
• 1:1 coaching and buddy systems for women returning to work which
• Focus on the transition back to work and work/life balance
• Part-time opportunities when returning from maternity leave
• Financial bonus when returning to work from maternity leave
• Childcare vouchers and Family Helplines
• Number of work-life balance and flexible working arrangements
Do contact us if you are thinking about implementing any of the above.
By Helen Letchfield