4 ways to help abolish gender inequality in your workplace
Modern workplaces are working hard to deliver parity between genders.
Reams of data are published on gender pay, pension and seniority gaps. Studying and divulging the problem is a key first step to finding a resolution. This is a required, but insufficient intervention.
ONS data shows gender pay gaps, for example, have fallen by a quarter over the last decade, to 7.7% as at April 2023.
Clearly, organisations are doing something right, but the challenge persists. It is particularly alarming that these disparities are particularly pronounced between men and women in their 40s – key earning years. Losing a couple of years of paid work in your 20s does not have the same effect.
Common pitfalls
There are two common pitfalls for companies looking to narrow gender inequities.
Firstly, they try to address gender gaps without a cohesive, high-impact strategy. They invest in solutions that only address one determinant of gender imbalances, such as menopause support.
This will of course add value, but ultimately fall short of their objectives given that the problem is multi-variate.
Secondly, companies overlook how gendered caregiving is, and the implications of unsupported caregiving on progression and participation of women in the workplace.
Removing the obstacles
Yurtle would like to offer an organising logic for tackling this persistent issue. Remove obstacles preventing your employees from participating in paid work.
Nothing widens the gender gap more than involuntary time spent away from work.
Being forced to work fewer hours, needing to take lower paying roles, and ultimately taking multiple and extended career breaks causes irrecoverable stagnation in wages, seniority, and pension savings.
Taking time out to care for loved ones, and not just childcare, but also sick, disability and elderly care are the main culprits.
Provide support
Companies need to support caregivers, given that it is the common denominator behind consistent participation in paid labour (ultimately the largest driver of gender inequities).
The probability of needing to take time out for unpaid care increases the older you are and if you’re a woman.
Society continues to assign a disproportionate role to women as carers. In fact, 58% of caregivers are women, according to Carers UK.
The picture gets gloomier for ‘sandwich’ caregivers (those with elder and childcare responsibilities simultaneously), where women constitute 68% of that population.
According to PensionBee, every year of paid work missed means the loss of an estimated £5,000 in pension saving, on average.
For every year that someone goes part-time instead of full-time, the average loss to a pension pot is an estimated £2,000.
Not only are caregivers’ savings stunted, but they are also required to incur out-of-pocket care expenses to fulfil their role to a loved one, often at the expense of long-term savings.
While people opt into childcare, elder, sick, and disability care are often not a choice but an obligation.
Modern workplaces are well-advised to organise their strategy on gender equality around the need to better support caregivers since not everyone can afford to put their career on hold.
Workplaces should consider their position on:
1. Flexible working
If there were such thing as a silver bullet, it would probably be giving employees the freedom to manage their own workloads – holding them to account for quality work delivered in a timely fashion as opposed to compliance with typical working hours.
2. Parity between all types of care
While childcare and parents have received meaningful investment in the recent decade, elder, sick, and disability care has been overlooked. It is all too common for UK corporates to exceed statutory provisions on parental leave but fail to do so for other forms of caregiving responsibilities.
3. Encourage dialogue about caregiving
All forms of care, including childcare, are still taboo in the workplace. Implementing a clear workplace policy to include caregivers is a sensible way to signal your intent on care to your colleagues and empower your line managers to navigate conversations with confidence.
4. Explicit caregiving wellness benefits
Today’s caregivers are often a single point of failure. They are single-handedly responsible for delivering care for a loved one. Providing them with tangible support tools, like Yurtle benefits, can allow them to build a resilient care team around them which minimises unnecessary interruptions to work.
It is important to acknowledge that all companies are at different stages in delivering true parity across genders, but for companies with little or no budget to devote to the cause there are still strides that can be made.
In partnership with Yurtle
Yurtle is an insurance-based employee wellness benefit helping companies to combat caregiver burnout (and the associated productivity and employee turnover losses) in the workplace.
