Gender pay gap bingo

Is it just me, or are some of the glib messages about the gender pay gap getting you down? If so, turn frustration into fun with a gender pay gap version of the classic business-jargon bingo. If not, read on to find out why what you have been saying with the best of intentions may be counter-productive.

Try to avoid the clichés that only seem to dismiss the problem. When questioned by recruits, current staff, or prospective clients, when planning management talks or updating internal policies, here is a list of what NOT to say:

1) We have some very high-achieving women, look at our female CEO/COO

That’s great, but it hasn’t fixed your pay gap, has it. The more you talk about your female executive when asked about the pay gap, the less it sounds as if you recognise your continuing problem.

And if she is white, heterosexual, able-bodied and child-free or with a stay-at-home father, handy grandparents or able to afford a nanny, or got where she was by returning full-time to work after taking only 6 weeks of maternity leave, there will still be plenty of women in your firm without a suitable role model. Also, don’t put all the responsibility on her to bring other women up.

2) We have a lower gender pay gap than our competitors

In a similar vein, the self-satisfaction behind this phrase gets people’s heckles up, and sounds dismissive of the problem. Just because others are doing worse, it does not mean you are doing well.

And in any case your relative performance may seem better than it actually is - for example because of a different make-up of services/products than your competitors, yet still have the same gender pay-gap within each service/product as your competitor. If it is justifiable better, then that’s great but don’t rest on your laurels as you will soon be overtaken.

3) It’s just because the men are mostly pilots/executives and the women are mainly air stewards/shop floor workers

So, it doesn’t bother you that that is the case? You don’t wonder why? Have you looked at your recruitment, reward, flexible-working and promotion policies and your working conditions to see why they lead to such gendered roles? Might you be missing out on diverse talents at both ends of the pay scale?

Talking about pay scale, is your pay ratio (manager to staff) worryingly high? Is your management optimally successful when it is in no way representative of its workers of your customers? Are you paying below the (actual) living wage such that typically only women can afford to work those roles, subsidised by male partners earning typically higher wages?

4) It’s an historic problem in our profession/industry

People have been saying this for ages. But in most cases, female recruitment rates went up decades ago then stabilised. Most promotional pay scales level off after around 10 years. Women should be represented equally across all levels by now.

Have you checked women’s typical progressions through your organisation? When is their pay or promotion stalling, or when are they leaving?

Can you own up that your company was complicit in not doing enough to retain women mid-career in recent decades? Have you changed anything to stop that happening? How will you check that works so that you don’t end up saying the same “historic problem” excuse in ten years’ time?

5) We just need to wait for enough women to make it up through to the higher ranks

See above - just waiting won’t be enough. Do not insult our intelligence or ignore the many research papers by suggesting otherwise. Women (and their male dependents) have had enough to quietly waiting for pay parity. On a related note:

6) We know it’s not happening fast enough, but we are on the case

(Para-phrased from Dawid Konotey-Ahulu’s article “So, let’s talk about black”: it’s a similar process going on for all under-represented groups):

Although it sounds the most reasonable response, in practice it's the most invidious. That's because it's the card that gives the player a plausible excuse for inaction. The seasons come and they go, nothing actually happens and no-one holds anyone to account because we're always "on the case". Of course, often, despite the protestations to the contrary, you're not on the case. So year after year goes by and nothing changes.

7) If there were any suitable women to promote to the next level, of course we would, but there just aren’t any/many

(Also from Dawid Konotey-Ahulu’s article “So, let’s talk about black”): “This may or may not be true, (it isn't always) but, if it is true, then it's because that's the system over which you preside and you need to take decisive action to change it.”

Have you been ensuring women are given chance to build up the right experiences and skills, and have them recognised?

8) We would love to promote more women, if they would just apply for the roles

Have you looked at what might put them off going for promotion? Are they effectively excluded from informal networks? Are your flexibility demands (time or geographic location or working alone when they could be harassed) too incompatible with the domestic duties that are still, on average shouldered more by women than men. Could you reinvisage the roles, working conditions and change any boys-club atmosphere?

Is what you offer for promotion enough to entice a woman to put up with everything she’ll have to put up? Would she feel part of a team or always an odd one out, with no-one wanting to listen to her ideas – except when it is a good one, when it would be restated by a man and claimed as his idea?

9) The problem is women leaving to have a family / women not being ambitious enough / women not being confident enough

From the above points, you should already have an idea why this is an inadequate analysis of the problem.

Do not leave it to women to solve your problems for you. You need to change your company so that they can realistically combine work with family, so that they do not have their confidence shattered by seeing how other women are treated, and so that their ambition is not thwarted by lack of attractive roles. Many of these issues are caused or exacerbated by workplace experiences. But even for any on-average differences that women bring with them, how can you change your processes so that you ensure you promote and retain the best, not just the ones who fit best into archaic processes?

10) We pay equal pay for equal work

Decades after equal pay legislation, this should not even need to be stated. It’s a bit like saying we fully embrace the use of computers at work. Referring to it implies you do not appreciate the other ways in which you are are causing and entrenching a gender pay gap in your company.

Also, it is likely that you are not actually paying equal pay for equal work. It is harder than it sounds to compare work to see if it is of equal value, hence the numerous court cases such as supermarket shelf-stacking versus depot-working. And in cases where the job is ostensibly the same but performance-related pay is given, then it is even easier for unconscious bias and systems designed by majority men to cause unequal outcomes for men compared to women.

11) We are a meritocracy

Do you really believe this? That women in your company have less intrinsic merit, on average, than men? Or is it that their work is less likely to be recognised, and they are less likely to be given the opportunity to showcase their abilities on attractive projects?

Have you considered all the other factors that lead to higher pay rises, earlier promotions, opportunities to work on challenging projects? Factors such as it’s not what you do but who know about it, and the easier access to networks that men often have; unconscious bias; and that according to research, even where they do get promotions or projects, women are more likely to be promoted to roles where there is no further role growth, or to be given projects that are more at risk of failure?

Whenever you resist any form of positive action on the basis that “we are a meritocracy and don’t want to mess with that by promoting someone just because she is a women”, remind yourself that you are not currently a meritocracy and that you have people who have been helped to get where they were because of being male, even if this was not a deliberate policy.

12) We do not tolerate sexism / sexism has no place in our company

If you need to state this, it is usually because you have tolerated it in the past – and are likely not making enough effort to change it now. It smacks of “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”. The phrases “do not tolerate” and “has no place” are widely discredited through overuse in response to various sexual harassment, racial abuse and antisemitism scandals, by organisations who are accused of not doing enough to root out these problems.

13) We do not consider gender when making HR decisions / we make hiring, training, project and promotion decisions equally regardless of gender

It is harder to see the problem here, it looks like a perfect example of equality in action. However, treating everyone equally in the context of an unequal world will yield unequal results.

You need to look at the particular difficulties that groups are facing. Women returning from maternity leave may need extra help to regain confidence or skills, or be given clients to make up for those they had to give up when going on leave. Women who have had, or fear, sexual harassment from clients, prospects or colleagues may need to support, or understanding of how that effects their networking.

14) She is not employed directly by us so it's not our responsibility

Apart from the ethics, acting as if outsourcing removes moral responsibility can damage reputation and employee relations - including relations with indirectly employed people and those directly employed.

Take the BBC's response to the revelation, at the Women's Equality Party conference, of party co-founder Sandi Toksvig's patently unfair pay as QI quiz host relative to males. The response "QI is made by an independent production company who manage their own talent fees", ignores the facts that it is paid for by license fees, that viewers will consider it BBC output and that the BBC will happily take credit for any praise it gets.

As commissioner, the BBC has the moral responsibility, the power, and arguably the Public Sector Equality Duty, to ensure it only works with companies who pay equitably. And BBC women will not feel empowered by the BBC's passing the buck here.

15) Does it matter, as long as we’re legally compliant who cares?

At the very least, hopefully you understand it matters from a reputational point of view, especially if your clients ask for figures to back up your equality statements. There is also the moral case, which many men only start to understand when they have a daughter and consider what they would like her life changes to be compared to a boy’s. And it matters as there is plenty of research that a more diverse workforce at all levels improves the bottom-line and helps with better decision-making.

To have a diverse workforce all working to their best of their ability requires valuing and paying people fairly. To have enough women at management and board level requires action at all levels, including promoting fairly.

And a final point that it would be nice to hear sometimes though it an be misused as another excuse not to fix the gender pay gap:

16) But what about the class pay gap / the race pay gap?

It’s great you are aware of those other gaps. They also need attention, and in many cases gender and ethnicity interact to create even larger gaps as seen in the Fawcett Society’s report on ethnicity and the pay gap,which helpfully analyses different ethnicities, since the picture is not as simple as “white British” and “the rest”.

Just ensure that this is not used as a way to draw attention away from tackling the gender pay gap. Instead, the insights into tackling one sort of pay gap can likely help you tackle them all.

Fundamentally, it all comes down to challenging the idea of what characterises a good CV, what management potential looks and sounds like, how to spot an employee who has had a good year, and who is allowed to succeed when being themselves.

What now?

I hope this article helps companies and their staff make more helpful responses when asked about their gender pay gap and what they are doing about it. In the meantime, have fun playing the bingo.