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.

Chamber launches toolkit to help businesses create fair culture

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A practical business toolkit on how to create a fair company that rewards employees while ensuring it makes sound financial sense has been launched today (Monday, 22 November 2021).

North East England Chamber of Commerce has developed the Good Work toolkit with support from its members Hodgson Sayers, Northumbrian Water, AES Digital Solutions and Thirteen Housing Group.

Niamh Corcoran, Chamber policy adviser said: “We are promoting ‘Good Work’ to encourage all regional employers to ensure they invest in their workforce, reward people fairly, commit to lifelong training and support the wellbeing of employees.

“At it’s core, the Chamber is about ensuring that the North East economy thrives. If we create a network of good businesses, we will build a stronger, future-proofed economy, underpinning a better, fairer and greener society.”

Six years ago Chamber Partner member Hodgson Sayers was the first company in the construction sector in the North East, and only the second in the UK, to become accredited by the Living Wage Foundation. The motivation for this was to be the best employer it could be and also for business benefits, such as well-paid staff being motivated and more productive. As well as this staff retention also significantly reduces training and recruitment advertising costs and long-serving employees create strong teams.

John Sayers, managing director said: “The economic reasons were important factors, but uppermost in our minds was the fact that embracing the Living Wage was simply the right thing to do. It chimed perfectly with our core values that guide all our transactions – honesty, decency and integrity. We don’t want people coming to work and worrying about money and whether they have enough to get them through the week. The wellbeing of our staff is as important to us as it is to them. We have a responsibility – a duty of care.”

Practical advice in the Good Work toolkit also came from Chamber Partner member Northumbrian Water which rose to the challenge of Covid to establish new working arrangements and introduced a range of new ways to support employees.

The company recognised that for many colleagues working remotely felt less like ‘working from home’ and more like ‘living at work’, so it reinforced the importance of self-care and disconnecting from work. Many employees were parents, so resources and activities were developed including the Parent & Family Zone and Parents’ Network for parents to offer peer to peer support to each other.

An internal platform for this initiative ‘Living Well’ had registered 96% of the Northumbrian Water workforce using the site with both office and field colleagues regularly accessing resources.

Advice in the Good Work toolkit from Thirteen Housing Group included ensuring employees are encouraged to upskill and enjoy their work every day. Joanne Lawther, director of people said: “We know our business could look very different in the future. Through our approach to talent and succession, we can understand how the skills we need might change and how this could affect roles across the business.

“We want our ambition, energy and passion to make a difference and to be the reason why colleagues want to work for Thirteen. We want our colleagues to want to help others thrive just as much as Thirteen does.”

Chamber President Lesley Moody’s business AES Digital Solutions has long-championed flexible working and being a Good Work ambassador. In the toolkit she recommends being supportive of people’s personal circumstances and believes the economic benefits are tenfold from employees as a result.

“In this new normal work environment, we should grasp the opportunity to use the learning and experiences of the last 18 months to help our staff achieve a better work-life balance.”

Download the report here

North East businesses get help to reduce gender pay gap

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A practical toolkit for employers on how to reduce their gender pay gap has been launched by North East England Chamber of Commerce with support from Home Group, one of the UK’s top four places to work for women*.

All of the toolkit’s help and advice was prepared by the Chamber’s Women’s Leadership Forum (WLF) using the housing provider’s recommendations.

The information aims to encourage businesses to have a fair working environment and salary scheme and also highlights the economic benefits of having a diverse workforce.

Nusheen Hussain, executive director, Business Development, Home Group and Chamber’s WLF member said: “We urge every member of the North East business community to use our toolkit and build fairness into the very essence of their companies and organisations. If we are to recover quickly from the pandemic it is paramount everyone gets a wage that is appropriate to their efforts and all employees are not discriminated against in any way.”

“At Home Group we believe our strong inclusive culture and leadership support has been fundamental to where we are today as an organisation that has embraced equality, diversity and inclusion. But we still have much work to do and continue with focussed attention, passion and effort towards gender parity within the workplace.”

The toolkit offers a simple, step by step guide for businesses to gather pay gap information and tackle discrepancies between male and female employees. They include collecting data and being transparent with it by publishing it on the website and using it to create an action plan for change.

It also recommends prioritising training and mentoring for women to encourage them to go into leadership. In Home Group’s Women into Leadership programme 32% of women on it gained promotion within just six months.

The pay gap advice also suggests examining flexible working policies, in particular to support women with caring responsibilities. It said pay gap work should be cross-cutting with other colleague groups and male allies being on-board with the work would be extremely beneficial.

Recruitment policies are key to encouraging a diverse workforce and Home Group has successfully improved its own record through representing different types of people in advertising, achieving a 7% uplift in diverse candidates applying.

The toolkit includes the advantages of using role models at a senior level who can share a career journey that has included overcoming struggles and how they achieved success.

Nusheen Hussain said: “The important part of narrowing a pay gap is to ensure you stay curious. Keep listening, learning and acting on colleague voices and evolving your approach. Also look externally for broader networks and insights that may help.”

Download the toolkit here

*Best places to work 2020