With 49% of the UK workforce made up of women, gender inequality in the workplace is more critical than ever before. 

Yet, women remain under-represented in executive and leadership roles. The gender pay gap remains stubbornly high at 15.4%. And women are more likely to be subjected to sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace than men. 

Improving gender equality brings a range of benefits not only for women but men too. Plus, your business will also benefit. Research shows that firms with greater diversity make better decisions 87% of the time. 
From gender analytics and equal pay to unconscious bias training and family friendly policies that support both sexes, here’s our seven-step plan to help you promote gender equality.

Step 1 – carry out a diversity impact assessment

Similar to a risk assessment, a diversity impact assessment helps you think critically about whether any approaches to work, programmes or policies might affect anyone with protected characteristics. This includes women, men and gender diverse people. By identifying potential impacts, you can address or mitigate these issues or promote best practice.

Step 2 – gain a deeper understanding of your workforce with gender analytics

It’s easy to see whether leadership teams are weighted more towards men than women. But what about further down your organisation? Do you have more women in certain grades or part-time roles than men? Or do some jobs or departments have a gender bias?

Granular data analysis through a gender lense will help you identify and understand the makeup of your business and guide your gender equalisation activity.

Step 3 – examine your exit interviews to work out what impacts men and women

Try splitting your exit interview data by gender to see what it reveals. You could find that pay or career development are more of an issue for women. Perhaps younger men are seeking more paid paternity leave. Or maybe both women and men want better flexible working options. Combine these insights with the information from your data analysis and gender impact assessment and you’ll have a powerful set of information to guide your next steps.

Step 4 – address your team’s gender biases

Unconscious biases can perpetuate gender stereotypes and promote outdated ideas. Like undervaluing women’s work, gender-based job segregation and assumptions about who carries out unpaid caring responsibilities. Unconscious bias training helps identify, challenge and unravel these stereotypes. Breathing fresh air into your company culture. 

There are some practical steps you can take straight away to avoid gender stereotypes. Including 

using gender neutral language in recruitment materials and internal communications, insisting on more diverse candidate lists for interviews and using diverse interview panels to reduce bias.

Step 5 – review your family friendly policies

Longer periods of paid maternity leave in comparison to paternity leave make it more likely that women will take the majority of parental leave. Placing childcare responsibilities firmly on women’s shoulders and excluding men who would like to be more involved. Unequal policies like this have a ripple effect. By their 30s, women are more likely to work part time than men which contributes to slower female career and pay progression. Which contributes to the gender pay and pensions gaps.

But it’s not only maternity and paternity policies you need to review. Take a look at all your family leave policies. Do they support all parents to take time off? And do they help people come back to work after taking family leave? 

Key to supporting men and women with caring responsibilities is flexible working which includes:

• Job sharing

• Working from home

• Career breaks

• Term-time working

• Part-time or compressed hours

• Flexi-time

• Staggered hours

Introducing some or all of these options is a good start. But it’s even more important that men and women in leadership roles act as flexible working role models to create a company culture that challenges gender stereotypes.

Step 6 – assess your gender pay gap

You might not employ the 250 people that make a gender pay gap report a legal requirement. But it’s still worth doing the work to understand whether you have any pay challenges. A good gender pay gap can be used to help attract new talent. And if the data’s not so good? You can identify the causes of your gender pay gap and take action to address them. Before re-running the report in a year’s time to measure progress.

Step 7 – take action to empower and promote all

The six practical steps above will help you build an action plan to improve gender equality in your workplace. However, you’ll also need to embed gender equality in your company culture. Try organising initiatives that empower and promote everyone. For example, connecting with male and female employees across your business to develop inclusive strategies around flexible working, pay equality, career paths and recruitment and selection processes. 

With everyone fully engaged in your drive to promote gender equality, you’ll find it easier to attract, hire and retain the top talent your business needs to thrive.

Need some support with your gender equality review? Contact PaceHR on 0208 016 3029 or at info@pace-hr.com to see how we can help.