International Women’s Day

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Marianne O’Sullivan, Policy Advisor latest column for The Journal

With international women’s day this week, and with many firms reporting difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff, employers need to look at what they can offer to female employees o help them to progress in the workplace.

The Chamber’s Women’s Leadership Forum has been focussing on reducing the gender pay gap in the North East.  It has produced a toolkit for businesses with some ideas of how businesses can start to take steps including prioritising training and mentoring activity and looking at recruitment processes.

At the Chamber we’ve also recently had Sharon MacArthur ‘Miss Menopause’ deliver training to managers with advice on how to create a menopause-friendly workplace. This can include allowing flexible working to help women who are experiencing irregular sleep patterns and access to quiet spaces with a cooler environment.

Improving access to childcare is also key  to supporting women to progress in the workplace. The Chamber has recently written to Government highlighting the need for changes to childcare including lowering the age at which children are eligible for subsidised childcare, ensuring both parents have access to properly paid parental leave and increasing the amount of paternity leave.

Analysis by the Women’s Budget Group suggests that an investment in free childcare would create 1.7 million full-time jobs and increase women’s employment by 6.4%. In a 2021 survey of more than 20,000 working parents only a small number  (16%) of women said childcare had not affected their seniority or income at work.

The theme for this year’s international women’s day was gender equality for a sustainable tomorrow. A survey from PwC in 2021 showed that 63% of respondents supported investment in green jobs but just one fifth (20%) of women believe they have the skills they need to work in a green job, compared to nearly one third (31%) of men.

We need to ensure that women are able to access green jobs in the future by removing barriers to adult education and training opportunities. The Government’s recently published Levelling Up White Paper includes a mission to increase the number of people undertaking high quality training, including women in these opportunities will be essential in creating a balanced workforce in the future.

In the Chamber we are continuing to do our best to highlight what can be done to support and develop women in their careers.  We will all be missing out on so much talent if we don’t help everyone reach their potential.

Building Gender Equality in the Wake of Covid-19

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A report by Dr Stephen R. Burrell of Durham University discusses how the North East business sector is addressing gender equality issues in the workplace in the wake of Covid-19.

There are growing concerns that gender equality in the workplace may be moving backwards as a result of the pandemic. In order to investigate the issue in the North East, Dr Stephen R. Burrell’s 2021 report provided the results of a small-scale but in-depth survey conducted between November 2020 and February 2021. The 72 participants were 78% women and 22% men, and came from a variety of North East business backgrounds.

While some respondents felt that greater flexibility from employers and more attention towards employee wellbeing have led to some positive impacts on gender equality, there remained some alarming findings. Respondents believed that, where there were differences in experience in relation to how men and women had been affected by the pandemic in their organisation, women had been more adversely affected for every single issue. This was particularly regarding responsibilities outside of work, such as childcare or home-schooling. Due to the fact that increased caring responsibilities had, in respondents’ experiences, generally fallen on women, this had made it more difficult to do their jobs and, therefore, put them under considerable pressure and stress. Some women stated that they had to stop working or reduce their hours, which supports research across the UK that mothers have been more likely to lose their jobs than fathers, and women have been more likely to be furloughed than men.

Despite this, over half of respondents were unsure whether their organisation had taken any steps to address gender inequalities during the pandemic, which Dr Burrell considers concerning. He states that there needs to be more education and dialogue about gender equality in the workplace as there is currently a degree of complacency, saying “there is always more work that can be done to promote inclusion, equity, and the health and wellbeing of staff”.

If you are wondering how best to address and provide support for gender equality within your business, the results of the report suggest that you should try implementing an awareness-raising campaign, training, and mentoring. Most important, however, is to have gender equality being championed by leadership, as this was a recurring theme in the responses. Businesses have the power to improve their communities for the better, so make sure that you are doing what you can to ensure inclusivity for all.

Read Dr Stephen R. Burrell’s full report here.

Freya Thompson

Knowledge and Research Executive

@NEEChamberFreya

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