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Child Care Dads Flexible Careers Gender Pay Gap Parental Coaching Parenting and Work Professional Mums Work Journeys

Management- Where is the female talent?

A third of organisations globally have no female talent in senior management roles (market-inspector.co.uk).  This was reported before Covid, it has been reported Covid has had a disproportionate impact on the careers of women. A LinkedIn study found that women were less likely to be hired than men during peak lockdown periods. Despite more women being made redundant or leaving jobs. 

There are so many things that may be contributing to these damaging statistics. Are women not applying to roles due to prioritisation of the overwhelming childcare and home-schooling plunged upon them? Are men not doing enough to support women and so they feel they can’t apply for a new job? Do organisations discourage their male employees requesting the flexibility that would allow their female partners to re-engage into the workforce? Or are organisations not considering female talent in the same volume as those from men? And therefore, even if unintentionally, contributing to these statistics?

Given the data recently shared by Find Your Flex, it is clear, that application clicks are 79% female. 47% of their audience is male, this demonstrates there is a wealth of female talent actively seeking high value jobs. 

Sssshhhh… Daddy’s working

Sadly still live in a time where, in many households, women are seen as the parent. That they should do the lions share of childcare and household chores. Even when the playing field of working hours and the impact of the pandemic is equal. I hear endless comments from working mums across the country saying things like “it’s so hard trying to get it all done – the home-schooling and working plus trying to keep them from interrupting daddy all day”. Why can’t daddy be interrupted?! 

Of course it is not my place to judge how households decide to cope during this totally dire time. But if it has just been assumed the responsibility of the kids falls to mum then, please, for the sake of women across the land have a conversation. Plot out what needs to be done – all the home-schooling, chores – everything – and decide who does what. If this impacts daddy’s work schedule then, just like mummy, he needs to find ways to accommodate. (I should say here I know this isn’t the case in all households. Many dads are brilliant at sharing the load. But many just haven’t realised it’s a shared responsibility, or see their job as not flexible… Did they ask?).

It is okay to let go you know.

Women also need to let go. We cannot control everything. I had a word with myself at the start of this home-school period. I couldn’t be the gate-keeper – being the only one that can log onto Google Classroom and hand in work. The only one that remembers to look for supermarket deliveries and figures out what to eat every day. I sat and gave my husband a Google Classroom lesson on day two as day one almost broke me.

I don’t check the work hubby now does with the kids. He and the kids enjoy him engaging with them and seeing their learning. I don’t walk around in a passive aggressive mumbling rage so much as last time. Winning all round! The kids don’t get their iPads if their beds aren’t made and the playroom isn’t tidy. Mums need to relinquish responsibility and trust someone else to do some of what they see as their load. If not we will never have time or headspace to find that career opportunity which is waiting there for us.

Scared to say the ‘F’ word

But back to this 79% of females applying to roles on Find Your Flex. The talent is clearly there. Ready, willing and able to be hired and contribute to organisations. To bring the female perspective and skill set that all organisations need. It is known the roles advertised on Find Your Flex are open and ready to be flexible. I fear this isn’t the case across other sites and those organisations not showing up on this site. I still have conversations with coaching clients about approaching an organisation and asking for flexibility – like it’s a dirty word. Applying through Find Your Flex removes anxiety for those who need to have “the chat” during the recruitment process. 

In my opinion, shifting the balance begins with organisations showing the men of the world Flex is for all. Showing men to see working flexibly or part-time isn’t a negative reflection on their masculinity. Allowing men to be available in their families. Allowing them to grow stronger bonds as equal caregivers to their children. To make room for females to work equally – to not have working gender equality set back 50 years plus.

The job market is tough, but jobs are there and female talent most definitely is. The crisis could be an opportunity. An opportunity for organisations to invest and build more empathetic and flexible workplaces. To retain and attract those most impacted by this pandemic. Nurturing a work environment where women have equal opportunity to develop their careers. And men have equal opportunity to be present in their families.

Rebecca Amin is a Career Coach helping parents feeling stuck in their careers, find their paths back to career happiness. Rebecca can be found via her website www.rebeccaamincoaching.co.uk; Facebook Page and Facebook Group, Career Happy Mums. 

Categories
Gender Pay Gap Mums Returning To Work

The Gender Impact Of Covid-19

How Bad Can It Be?

Women make up 39% of global employment, but account for 54% (so far) of Covid-19 related job losses. This means women’s jobs are 1.8 times more vulnerable to this crisis than men’s (McKinsey). Not great news for efforts to close the gender pay gap.

Before Coronavirus, there had been slow progress in closing the gender pay gap, gender parity remained uneven. Without intervention, a real risk exists that slow progress made, could go into reverse. Not only holding back gender equality but the global economy. 

Why Are Women Bearing The Brunt?

Women are disproportionately represented in industries and jobs negatively impacted by Coronavirus (think hospitality, tourism, retail, childcare…). However this only explains one quarter of why women have been more vulnerable to job losses.

Coronavirus, has seen many women assume the lion’s share of the childcare, home schooling and household chores. All whilst trying to hold down the career they worked tirelessly to achieve. This highlights that socially we still live in a world where such responsibilities are assumed to be “women’s work”. This has resulted in a huge volume of women feeling they need to make a choice between their careers and their families. 

The “second shift” as it is often referred to (when the unpaid job of childcare, household chores, cooking, cleaning kick in after actual working hours!) has been increasingly shared by men. But, it is a fact women are still bearing most of the load. Women are being interrupted by household demands at a much higher rate than men, meaning performance at work is more heavily impacted. Childcare is still being cited as one of the number one reasons for women not being able to work (CNBC).

What Does This Mean For Women In The Longer Term?

Whilst many men have been able to lock themselves away to carry out a full days work, many women have not. This could mean an impact on their output. Quite possibly also on their perceived performance and therefore their potential development and promotional opportunities. The stark reality is the impact of Coronavirus on women’s careers may well be felt long after the virus is out of circulation. A widening of the gender pay gap, not closing it as we’ve long fought for. This will then only exacerbate the pay and promotion gaps that were already in existence. 

One good thing to come from this is more focus on and acceptance of the need for flexible working. However even this is not viewed equally. Some say men are encouraged to make use of flex to enhance productivity. Women are expected to adopt flexible working to allow more capacity for their unpaid work.

All of this goes to show equality at work and embracing flexibility for all is not just a nice thing to do. It should be a requirement of all employers. Women can’t be everything to everyone all of the time. Using flexibility to suggest this is possible is not the right solution. We need flex for all. We need to be able to manage personal and professional lives in unison. Not as a way to attempt to be the doer of even more things!

Does This Have To Mean Bad News For The Gender Pay Gap?

There’s no debating times are tough and women really have arguably taken the biggest hit. This doesn’t mean we have to accept this as our fate. We cannot rewind back to the 1950s. 

The Covid crisis has allowed us to redress the balance a little at home. I know in my household, my husband being home and seeing more of the children has had a positive impact on all of us. We are a calmer and happier household. I am less resentful of him having the “luxury” of being out of the house all day. He is less exhausted from hours on a train struggling to find time for exercise and rarely seeing the kids outside of the weekend; the children clearly see him as a more equal care-giver than they did previously.

Many of my clients have found remote working opportunities which historically would have been purely office based – one of the reasons some had left their careers several years back. There is less feeling of needing to prove ourselves before we ask for flex or remote working. It’s a fact of life that we all continue to need this and I have high hopes many organisations will keep this as a permanent feature. 

Having time away from the workplace (whilst hugely stress-inducing for those that have worked throughout), has allowed time for reflection. Time to consider what we truly want from our lives and careers. Investors In People have found one in three of the UK’s population are unhappy in their current role or industry. This in itself is not cause for celebration. But we may have just carried on pushing through without this time of pause and reflection. Ending up in a much more unhappy place. 

The Question Now Is What To Do Next?

Albert Einstein said “In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity” and this is something we all must remember. Organisations can take this chance to change how they embrace flexible working, how they manage performance and promotional activity; parents have more opportunity to bring more equality to the unpaid work at home; we all have a chance to truly consider what we want. Now it feels hard, like we just need to get through it. But what can you take from this? Work towards the future you want that this unexpected pause in life has allowed you to see?

Can We Continue To Close The Gender Pay Gap?

We are in uncertain times. Work practices are changing, for the better we hope. So while this pandemic may have set women back, I know that women are fighters and we will bounce back from this. Stronger and better than before.

Find Rebecca on our career coaching page

Categories
Business Gender Pay Gap

Flexible Working – What Exactly Does It Mean?

There is no one answer to this question. This is because it means different things for different people. Some flexible working practices work incredibly well for some teams but may be totally inappropriate for others.

So What Exactly Do We Mean By The Term ‘Working Flexibly’?

We believe that it is a work pattern that accommodates both the needs of the employee whilst maintaining the business needs of the company. It is a symbiotic relationship. You cannot have one without the other.

The Find Your Flex Group use the 6 pillars to explain the different forms of flexible working.

The Six Pillars Of Flexible Working

  • FT Flexi Start & Finish TImes
  • Term Time Only
  • Part Time
  • Compressed Hours
  • Remote Working
  • Job Share

Flexi Start and Finish Times

Employees work their contracted hours but can choose alternative start and finish times. Some businesses choose to have core hours that everyone has to be present for.

Term Time Only

Employees only work during school term time. This allows parents to manage school holidays without the need to rely on paid help or favours. Employees have full employment rights.

Part Time

Many people who work part time are just as ambitious as their full time colleagues. People work part time hours for varying reasons. Financial, personal desire, childcare and more. For this group of people it’s really important that are considered as important as their full time counterparts. They have the same employment rights as those working full time.

Compressed Hours

Working contracted hours across a compressed time period. For example full time hours over 4 days. Conversely, some may wish to work part time hours but over 5 days. Some employers state a core day for meetings that everyone must be present for.

Remote Working

Working in a location other than the main office. It could be at home or in a shared working environment.

Job Share

A role that has the workload capacity for full time hours but is split between 2 employees. It could be an even split or an alternative split such as 75:25.

There are so many benefits to facilitating flexible working patterns. Not forgetting that flexible working can go a long way to closing the gender pay gap and increasing gender diversity in the workplace. To read more, why not download our Tips To Implementing Flexible Working.

See how your business can become a flexible working partner.

Categories
Dads Gender Pay Gap Shared Parental Leave

Shared Parental Leave

It’s Potential Value To Flexible Working

How Many Even Know What Shared Parental Leave Is? 

How many know how to find out more information about Shared Parental Leave? 

Does it even work for people? 

How many have experienced it?

Around 285,000 couples every year qualify for Shared Parental Leave, but it is estimated that take up could be as low as 2% in the UK. Why is uptake so low and what benefits are there to better uptake?

With Childcare options in the UK being known as incredibly expensive could SPL be the first step to alleviating this pressure?

Why Aren’t People Taking Shared Parental Leave?

What is stopping parents from using Shared Parental Leave?:

  • Lack of awareness of it’s very existence from both parents to be and organisations!
  • Maternity / paternity Leave policies that need updating which will prompt discussion.
  • The lack of enhanced paternity pay available. Many fathers are stuck with the statutory rate (currently £140.98). While mothers on maternity pay often benefit from their employer’s more generous package (enhanced maternity pay). 
  • Fear of the impact taking extended leave above the ‘traditional’ 2 weeks will have on one’s career. We need to move away from the fact that taking a break, be it maternity / paternity / career break does not mean a sudden loss of experience, skills or enthusiasm. It means that for a period of time one wants to allow their focus to change without work suffering.

Better Shared Parental Leave Uptake Equals…

We believe that better awareness will lead to better uptake and a whole host of other benefits to workers and organisations.

Better uptake could contribute towards:

  • Closing the gender pay gap. Improving SPL makes it more attractive and realistic for men. This means more women are able to continue in careers and pursue senior higher paid roles. If we want an equal society then we must allow fathers to have the same access to paternity leave that mothers have.
  • Better parental mental health. SPL can allow people to better manage family and work commitments, thus leading to better mental health. After all, those early days can be incredibly hard. The option to have both parents off at the same time could make all the difference to mental health.
  • Better recruitment and retention of talented employees. Attractive SPL packages, beyond the statutory pay will lead to attracting talent from a wider pool of possible recruits. It also means that employees are more likely to return and stay following maternity / paternity leave. Shared Parental Leave Campaign UK

What You Need To Know About Shared Parental Leave

  • You and your partner may be able to get Shared Parental Leave (SPL) and Statutory Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) if you’re having a baby or adopting a child.
  • One can share up to 50 weeks of leave and up to 37 weeks of pay between you.
  • Share the pay and leave in the first year after your child is born or placed with your family.
  • You can use SPL to take leave in blocks separated by periods of work. Or take it all in one go. 
  • Choose to be off work together or stagger the leave and pay.

Providing truly flexible employment options is a key part of the Industrial Strategy. The Industrial Strategy is the government’s long-term plan to build a Britain fit for the future by helping businesses create better, higher-paying jobs in every part of the UK. (Business Minister Andrew Griffiths).

Going One Step Further

Why not just have ‘Parental Leave’ with the same length of leave for both parents. Should parents have the same amount of statutory pay, regardless of which parent? The encouragement or better still enforcement that any enhanced pay is available regardless of which parent is taking the leave. We feel that Shared Parental Leave has the potential to add great value to flexible working initiatives. But does need some changes in order to be of value.

Stay tuned to see what our surveyed audience said! 

Categories
Dads Gender Pay Gap Shared Parental Leave

A Dads Share

Back in November 2014 my wife and I were overjoyed with the arrival of our daughter Beatrice. Being at home with her for those first two weeks was amazing and she was perfect in every way, but a month in to her life she was diagnosed with hip-dysplasia and we were told she would need surgery. After bringing her home she was made to wear a large, heavy & very awkward spica cast and the practicalities of this meant a simple thing like picking her up became too much for my Wife.

At the time my job had become dull and unfulfilling so I was more than happy for a change
of scenery. I took split paternity leave in May 2015 and would spend eight months off work and at home with Bea. The first few weeks it felt like a holiday as the sun was shining and the feelings of stress, monotony of the daily commute and rat-race dissipated. I found myself getting up with a smile on my face and sorting Bea’s breakfast, changing her nappy, dressing her and planning the day ahead. It all felt fresh and new and different but no doubt these feelings were born out of a craving for change. I did get some people (you know who you are) questioning my decision and giving what they saw as banter about how I was now a house husband (amongst other offensive labels) but I took it all in jest.

While I was finding the arrangement quite easy I knew my wife was struggling emotionally. She is one of the strongest willed people alive and she had always been determined to go back to work after having a baby but she felt like she was fighting society’s image of what mothers should be and her own instincts to care for our daughter.

As the weeks went by and I’d fallen in to good & bad routines. I started to get a bit defensive with continuing comments from (mostly) male friends, coupled with waves of bottled up anxiety about Bea’s condition. She would play on the living room floor by pulling herself around with her arms, dragging her cast behind. I was also feeling guilty by not being at work and earning money. Looking back, I was in a very bad place and I wish I’d opened up and found some help. I read this week that 28% of Men suffer from post-natal depression but all I could think when I read this statistic was what my late grandfather would have thought of men these days. My generation has had to re-mould the male image more than any other as we’ve advanced in to more gender fluid times.

When October rolled round and I had gone way past the six months originally agreed for split-paternity leave. My work couldn’t have been more helpful at the time as they were well aware of Bea’s needs and we’d agreed that I could return on a three-day basis. We worked out a schedule between family who we couldn’t be more thankful for and I returned to work.

Going back was strange and the biggest annoyance was having to constantly explain my situation to anyone asking where I’d been. A group email hadn’t gone round before I’d left as I wasn’t the one with the womb. I got questions on whether or not we were going to have anymore kids which began to feel intrusive.

We did eventually decide to have another baby and Eliza came along in the September of 2016. As my wife’s employer couldn’t offer her flexible hours she decided to go it alone and I was back full-time. A few months in I was asked to go for a promotion within my dept. I had been with the company for 10 years but when it came down to the final decision they chose someone else and I still wonder if my taking SPL had anything to do with it.

Overall I think we’ve been lucky as since I started working for our websites I’ve heard terrible stories from women who’ve been moved sideways, demoted or let go simply for choosing to have children. There needs to be a total attitude shift in the way parents can work and the way mothers are treated by their employers. Technology allows us to work anywhere these days and everyone should be given the option to work flexibly.

By Liam Hamilton
Co-Founder @ Daddyjobs.co.uk

Categories
Gender Pay Gap Productivity & Flexibility Work Journeys

Would improving men’s rights help close the gender pay gap?

Written by Fiona Halkyard @ Chatter Communications

I don’t really think of myself as much of a feminist. I don’t get offended if a man holds a door open for me or calls me “love” (to be fair living in Yorkshire, it’s a pre-requisite and even men get called love, so score one for equality!). But I am a woman who’s pretty dedicated to her career. I’m a working mum. And, most importantly, I have three daughters who are (in my completely neutral opinion) amazing human beings who will go on to be brilliant adults. And for them, and their generation, I’d like to see true gender equality finally become a real thing.

And so there are certain “female” issues that really piss me off. And the current bee in my bonnet is the gender pay gap (which leaves British women earning an average of 17.4% less than men in similar full-time jobs and places us 15th out of 22 countries*). Or rather the gender bias that continues to dog our society and prevent women from achieving the same career success as their male counterparts.

My experiences

Through my twenties my career progressed quite successfully and initially, being female didn’t really factor. But once I moved into a management role I started to become aware of nuanced differences between the way I was treated compared to men of a similar age.

There was a “boys club” of up and coming ad execs who got invited to golf/beers/important client dinners with the MD and Chairman and suddenly progressed their careers far quicker than me and my female colleagues. The most memorable moment that made me stop and pay attention that perhaps I wasn’t being judged purely on my ability, was the conversation I had with the company Chairman when being considered for a promotion and he “joked” that he was only considering me because he “trusted” that I wasn’t just going to “run off and have babies anytime soon”. I was 27, engaged, and whilst not immediately planning a family, I knew it probably wasn’t too far off in my future. Yet I had to pretend that “no, no I’m a dedicated career woman, none of this baby nonsense for me” in order to pass his “test”.

I wonder if any man has ever felt that pressure? They certainly didn’t in that particular business where men could marry and become Dads without a single raised eyebrow from the powers that be. To be aware that even the potential of a marriage/baby that may not happen for a decade or more (or ever) could be a factor you have to answer to because you are “a woman of a certain age” is frustrating and archaic. And while most employers are far too savvy/legally compliant to ask the question that my old boss did, we all know that it is often consciously or unconsciously a factor when hiring or promoting a young woman.

And to some extent I get it. Women do often have babies in their late twenties, thirties, forties. And then want reduced/flexible hours. And that costs a business, especially a small one, a lot of money that perhaps doesn’t make up for the value of the employee in their child free years. But women do not choose to be born female. So why should they have to choose career or parenthood? Men don’t. Does that make men better at their jobs? Does it make them lesser parents? In my opinion the answer is no.

The here and now

The UK has made fabulous strides over the past 11 years, since I became a mum, to make it a little bit easier to juggle motherhood and working life. Maternity pay/leave have been extended and it’s become the norm to take a year or more off and still return to a well paid role. Flexible working policies have also become fairly common place, allowing women to balance the demands of work and parenting. Which is all brilliant. But still comes with restrictions. Breakfast meetings, after work networking, long days of travel, are all pretty hard to work around most childcare provisions. And whilst colleagues can be supportive, you can still feel that you’re more “difficult” to work with than a child-free colleague. And that affects confidence, your feelings of job security, it can put you off applying for a promotion or new role as you don’t want to upset the status quo.

And so women tread water while their kids are young and their male counterparts progress. And by the time you’re able to be “all in” at work, you’ve reached a glass ceiling and are reporting into men with 10 years less experience than you have. And so the gender pay gap persists.

So what’s the answer? What can we do? Even more benefits and support for women? Maybe. But to change the social stigma, how about we focus on men?

Again the UK has made some excellent progress in sharing the load of parental responsibility in the work place with paid paternity leave and shared parental leave and the opportunity for anyone to apply for flexible working. But it’s still not the norm. Paid paternity leave is still only funded by the government for 2 weeks. Our parenting leave is only the 11th most equal out of 21 countries* with shared parental leave a minefield to organise and flexible or part time working is still something that feels more aimed at women than men (men make up only 25.8% of the part-time workforce, leaving the UK 16th out of 21 countries measured *). Dads who take extended time off to be with their new baby tend to face social stigma, or at least a few raised eyebrows. And this means that on average, British men spend 24 minutes caring for children, for every hour done by women, according to the Fatherhood Institute’s Fairness In Families Index (FIFI).

People also presume that the woman will be the one to take a career break as the man is earning more (a comment even my own husband made, completely forgetting that when we started a family we were on equal salaries, as many couples are). And on the flip side, women whose partners take more time off than them are seen as “lesser” mums, putting their career before their kids. And because of all of this, men in their late twenties and early thirties are still not associated with the “pregnancy risk” that may entail a career break or reducing their hours at some point, even if married or with long term partners.

But if we could encourage more men to take up the opportunity to be at home with their kids, work flexibly and take on more of the parental juggle – without being judged for it. If we bring our kids up to see that both mum and dad can be their carer and have a career maybe things might finally be come more equal.

And if a parental career break (or indeed a mid-life career break for any purpose) becomes society’s standard for both men and women, then the glass ceiling might finally shatter. Maybe not for me and my peers (if we’re lucky we’ll be retired by then!). But if my daughters can dream, believe and achieve with no limits, then that would be a wonderful thing.

*stats taken from the Fatherhood Institute’s Fairness In Families Index 2016

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