|
The Conservative government strategy of leading the political centre ground has reached the equality and diversity debate ending decades when business could expect the Conservatives to hold back the pace of change to the speed of the last laggard.
The world of recruitment, personnel and development has just changed.
The equality and diversity management task is no longer seen by government as avoiding discrimination cases, the “victims and losers” of crude political jargon, represented by the left, the unions and the priority only of Harriet Harman and campaign groups.
David Cameron, speaking at the Times CEO Summit, told business leaders, to their face, that it had to be proactive and delivered and “transparency” was his tool in driving equality. The implications for business are challenging and may arrive sooner than expected.
The CBI said they would “work with the government to ensure that rules on what is published are flexible enough to be relevant to each company”.
Communications, personnel and development managers know the campaign world of “transparency” does not have fixed rules. Standards are set by public response, credibility, authenticity as retailers, for example, know only too well. If you don’t get ahead of the game, you get beaten.
Focussing on equality pay and positions for women inevitably opens up pressures on companies on ethnicity, sexuality, age and disability. Why publish on one and not the other? What have you got to hide will be the pressing question?
The Prime Minister made clear this policy moves beyond the ending “discrimination” dealt with retrospectively through law, which has been at the centre of legislation for a generation, and onto the equality and inclusion agenda in the court of public opinion.
The government’s principle tool is to be publishing the figures, or “transparency”,
David Cameron said:
“transparency ….today I’m announcing a really big move.
We will make every single company with 250 employees or more publish the gap between average female earnings and average male earnings.
That will cast sunlight on the discrepancies and create the pressure we need for change, driving up women’s wages”
David Cameron, 14th July
This is the belief that not just shame, internal and external peer pressure but also external public pressure will force the pace. The pressures in the recruitment and retention market will rise quickly. The CBI fears it will not all be fair, “publishing pay gap data could be misleading” they commented.
Plus it will hit the bottom line. For the second time in a week the conservative party has committed itself to driving up wages with direct implications for the bottom line – and not just for the lower paying sector. David Cameron said “it’s part of a new British contract” - he cuts taxes, organisations “pay their staff properly and fairly”.
For recruitment, personnel development and talent managers the challenges to persuade the best that you are the right company to work for and stay at have just moved up several gears. A new level of competition for talent is in play.
This is all made possible because organisation data on their employees has reached a “tipping point” making this possible and practical. For a generation businesses and public bodies have been collecting statistics on the profile of their staff, not just pay and gender but ethnicity, age and many other bits of key data. Companies will now have to find out if their methodologies, stats and conclusions are robust in public.
The pressure to publish now, ahead of legislation will be overwhelming and some companies are already ahead of the game and setting the pace.
As with low pay and the living wage it will not be long before Boris repeats his proposal that meeting such standards should be a condition of getting public contracts. The same words from the mouth of Ken Livingstone, the London Mayor a decade ago,would have been denounced by every conservative in parliament – such is the scale of change.
How are businesses preparing? Who is on the case? A route map can be found in the work of the E&Y National Equality Standard and the work of the Employers Network on Equality and Inclusion where many businesses and public organisationsare already working on this. The NOON Centre at the University of East London hasa Conference and Awards on Equality and Diversity Through Business addressing these issues at Canary Wharf in London, including an award category on transparency.
Steve Varley, Chair of NES, and UK Chair of Ernst and Young, made clear in a speech on 22 June that this is now about “competitive advantage”, that reputation and practice in equality and diversity affects the performance inside a company and in it markets.
A powerful message for those who need to convince their boards to embrace the new world of transparency in employment and prepare for the change coming.
Policy Review Equality & Diversity. Published 14th July 2015
|