The gender pay gap groundhog day

I’ve written in a couple of newspapers about the latest dispiriting gender pay gap numbers. But in truth, the more I look at the reports, the more frustrated I feel.

It’s not just because gender pay gaps have widened at half of UK companies since they were reported last year. That in itself is hardly surprising – the numbers we are looking at now are actually based on data gathered on 5 April 2018, as the ink was still drying on the first mandatory reports. Many organisations only realised the extent of their problem last year – a poor excuse perhaps, but still a plausible explanation for the lack of immediate improvement.  

No, my frustration is down to the shamefully small number of companies that are publishing meaningful, thoughtful action plans around how they are going to close their gaps. A quick sampling suggests there has been some improvement on the paltry 20% of firms that did so last year, but the reports are still typically perfunctory: lots of glossy pictures of smiling women alongside (presumably fictitious) male colleagues, ‘explanations’ of the difference between equal pay and the gender pay gap, repeated references to ‘the lack of women at senior levels’ (who knew?) and repeated use of the word ‘committed’. The whole thing smacks of an empty PR exercise.

Frankly, I’m not buying it. More of the same will just create more of the same, a gender pay gap groundhog day in 2020, 2021, 2022…unless and until, the gloss is wiped off and the problem is properly acknowledged. It will only be when we really try to create the right cultures for women to thrive at work that we will no longer be subject to the annual gender pay gap déjà vu.

Acknowledging that we have a problem is half of the battle. This is the first real step on the road to closing the gender pay gap and the other injustices that are caused by it, such as the gender savings gap. It is perfectly possible to reach parity if we truly think that there is a problem that requires a solution in the first place.

The good news is that at this point, I do believe that most CEOs really want to see genuine progress. It’s hard to find anyone in senior management who wouldn’t at least say that gender (and broader) diversity is important to their company’s future prospects. Most will extol the virtues of diversity of thought when it comes to decision-making, creativity and innovation.

Yet the reality is that few actually behave as if they believe this. The gender pay gap problem should catalyse a different, more radical approach – and some competitive tension, too, to be the best, not just avoid being the worst. If we a) seek to measure against our action plans and b) the action plans produced are granular and bolder, we have a real chance of achieving follow-through to the well-meaning corporate missives and inspiring speeches.

The gender pay gap is the result of decades (actually, centuries) of lesser career opportunities for women, societal expectations about our roles and, for many years, unequal pay (for the same job) too. I’d argue that it’s also the result of straitjacketed life choices for men – the definition of ‘male success’ has long been based on career and salary. This is all up for change, change that will benefit all of us, enable men and women to be true life partners and to play to their strengths rather than fulfill stereotypes. Young, talented people – men and women – hold the key. They expect more. They expect workplaces that are genuinely inclusive, the opportunity to work smartly, and to play a full role in their future family’s upbringing.

But we can’t really wait for the next generation of employees to come through – especially in ‘traditional’, male-dominated industries such as my own – the financial services sector. The reality is that the cultural challenges remain very strong and off-putting. Every week I am contacted by women who tell me they are discouraged, who explain how they are patronised, queried, doubted and subjected to aggressive behaviour or harassment. They don’t know who to turn to in their own workplace. Where is this in the current gender pay gap action plans? Where is there even an acknowledgement of the unhappy – and talented – women?

From now on, I’m not going to speak at women-only network groups– not because I don’t want to encourage or engage, but because we need men in the room. And I don’t mean (as so often happens) an ‘executive sponsor’ turning up to welcome me to the stage and then go off to do something ‘important’. I mean actively involved.

Men who mentor, who listen to the actual experiences of women who work for them, who fight their female colleagues’ corner when they are talked down to or ignored, who stand up for a woman who’s done all the work on a project so her boss doesn’t take all the credit (and the promotion/pay rise). Who see progress on this issue as a reflection on their own personal leadership and as a prerequisite to successfully implementing business strategy. At this point, with many companies already feeling a sense of gender diversity fatigue (yes, really), discouraged about the results of their efforts to date, we badly need a reset.  I would suggest more focus on the ‘other’ side of the gender equality and pay gap equation; what this all means for men.

Last year, Business in the Community conducted a survey, ‘Equal Lives’, canvassing the views of over 10,000 people. The focus was on men with careers and caring responsibilities. 85% of fathers felt they should be playing an equal role to women in terms of caring for their children, but in practice, mothers were eight times more likely to be the primary child carer. The findings around caring for adults (usually an elderly parent) were very revealing; here, men were almost as likely to be carers as women, but two-thirds of men caring for another adult had not disclosed the fact to their employer. They were nervous about the impact on their career, that it was culturally unacceptable. Only 7% said that their own manager was a good role model when it came to balancing work and the rest of life.

These are the issues that gender pay gap reports should be focusing on: behaviours, attitudes and ‘real life’ experiences. Until we see that, I’m afraid it will be more of the same.