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Something to get the argumentative juices flowing in the morning – gender pay disparity continues in the UK. A Q&A (with me).
Are you aghast and shocked by this? No. More resigned, and the fact that male senior execs earn over £10k more than their female counterparts is incredibly disappointing.
On an up note – at least there are women in senior positions, right?! Absolutely – progress has been made. Or has it? Female execs are more likely to be made redundant than male execs (4.5% vs. 3%). Dare I voice it – it would be interesting to know of that 4.3% of redundancies of female execs, what percentage were part time or parents. But that’s me just being crazy; that couldn’t possibly have anything to do with a redundancy decision. It’s illegal for a start.
What’s the answer – quotas? It’s a toughie. If we look to Scandinavia, they have quotas for female representation at board level – and it works. Look at their thriving economy.
That’s it! We should look toward a country based on socialist ideals? Maybe so, but we can’t ignore the cultural differences between us, as these certainly impact business culture. For example, in Sweden, maternity/paternity is split equally between the father and the mother, and is compulsory for each. We are no way near that type of equality – I think most CEOs here would laugh in the face of such a suggestion. By contrast, in the UK (I’m making a general statement here) paternity leave is a miserly two weeks at below pay. Most new fathers I know found it more economical just to take holiday leave. Then there’s the cost of childcare issue. In the UK it can be prohibitive – see news today that the cost of going to work outweighs the incoming salary. (And yes, I know many gender equality think tanks and women will be indignant at this (old) argument – why should we be defined by our children, etc. Yet, when was the last time you saw a part-time dad be made redundant?)
Back to quotas – yay or nay?
As I say, it’s a toughie. Generally I think that, no, it’s not ideal to enforce quotas. The argument that all people should achieve something on their own merit is a sound one. The question is whether there are unconscious (or indeed, conscious) barriers in place within businesses preventing equal career progression*. Pay disparity, higher risk of redundancy at the top, and fewer female execs as role models (there are many female CEOs of FTSE companies to look up to, yet very few are actually from the UK. Check out the FT’s Women at the Top – top 50 businesswomen from 2010), could make it an uphill battle for high achieving women.
So, no quotas and we’re not a socialist structure, what do we do?
Why, thanks for asking. I agree with the expert pundits – it’s about transparency and monitoring. All businesses need to monitor career progression of their staff to ensure that they are promoting and paying people equality. This is all about structured line management procedures, and internal monitoring. Yes, it might seem a hassle at first – but once in place it’s fairly straightforward. And, the benefits to the business will be enormous – think of the talent that is being otherwise ignored!
Ultimately, we are living in a diverse society and our workforce needs to reflect this – be it gender or ethnicity. All individuals need to be treated equally when it comes to pay and career progression. Only with internal monitoring can we know that this is being achieved, and only with transparency can businesses be held up as being a truly equal organisation.
*To find out your own unconscious bias it’s worth taking five minutes to take this online test from Race for Opportunity: Know Yourself. You might be in for a surprise!
