UK Labour Party and the gender pay gap

At current rates, opinion is divided of how long it would take to close. The TUC (Trade Union Congress) puts the number at 35 years to over 60 years according to the Fawcett Society.

To have the gap closed in 11 years would require some drastic action, the Labour party have not given much information on how they plan to do this is yet (we await the manifesto). What we do know is there will be a “Workers Protection Agency” which will have the powers to fine companies not reporting gender pay gap. From the end of 2020, all workplaces with over 50 employees will be required to publish this data.

Although the Labour party are not expected to win the election, it shows a more aggressive stance from society to resolve Diversity in the workplace. Below are some practical steps by published by Mckinsey which a company can take to improve the diversity of their workforce.

Get more women into first level management – There has been a focus for companies to add women to executive boards, however, this progress is not reflected or reported in first level management. Companies should implement aggressive targets around hiring and promotions
Require Diverse shortlists for hiring and promotions – Research shows that adding one woman to a shortlist will result in almost statistically no chance she will be hired. This dramatically changes when 2 or more women are added to the shortlist.
unconscious bias training – Focus to have at least half the staff trained on unconscious bias, and try and change process to remove the opportunity for unconscious bias to effect decisions.
Establish Clear evaluation Criteria – Companies need to make sure that they have the right processes in place to remove bias from the hiring processes. Evaluation tools should also be easy to use and designed to gather objective and measurable input rather than an open ended assessment

At Ohcul jobs, we promote diversity within the workplace through removing the opportunity for people’s unconscious bias to reflect in the recruitment process.

Employee diversity provides a number of benefits to any organisation (large and small). Ethnically diverse companies perform 35% better than their industry median and gender diverse companies are 15% more likely to haver returns above the industry median. With the national customer base becoming more diverse, it is important that a company is representative to fully understand its clients’ needs and, according to the latest research, 67% of employees cite a diverse workforce is a key factor when looking at a role.

At Ohcul, we remove the opportunity for hidden bias from a CV review stage. Our unique tool removes identifying data from a clients CV allowing a recruiter to progress the best candidates.

If you would like some more information you can contact us on info@ohcul.com or visit the web site www.ohcul.com