WiC

More than half of women avoid asking for a pay rise

11 March, 2020 By WiC

Wages have been increasing at a faster rate than inflation since 2018. According to statistics released by the Office of National Statistics, the average weekly income for full-time workers has seen a year-on-year increase of 2.9%, rising from £568 to £585.

Delving into the salary expectations vs reality, research collated by Instant Offices reveals that in 2019 UK wages saw the fastest rise in just over a decade, increasing by 3.9% in just three months.

The difference between men and women regarding salary negotiations

One-third of women state they believe they are over qualified for their current role, regardless, data show that women seem less likely to approach or instigate a conversation around money in the workplace. In fact, growing number of women prioritise work-life balance, flexible working options and better hours over money.

Workers who	Men (%)	Women (%)
Feel comfortable asking for an increase	64	43
Have never negotiated their salary	40	55
Are more likely to negotiate working hours than pay	41	56
Are more likely to negotiate on specific parts of a job	55	42

In their book, “Why Women Don’t Ask“, Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever reveal that men are four times more likely than women to ask for a raise—and when women do ask, they typically request 30% less than men do. In a study of 78 masters degree students, Babcock, a Carnegie Mellon University economics professor, found that just 12.5% of women negotiated for their starting salary, versus 52% of men. That leads, by her estimate, to as much as $1.5 million in lost income over the woman’s career. The gap is closing somewhat among younger women, who are more likely to ask for raises and are more likely to be the family’s primary breadwinner, but women are still far from parity when it comes to negotiating pay. Moreover, an Australian study of 4,600 employees found that while women were as likely as men to ask for raises, they were 25% less likely to receive them.

Money disparity starts young and affects women throughout their lives

Moreover, money disparity starts young with boys receiving more pocket money than girls. It’s no wonder, then, that women’s financial security is compromised, literally from cradle to grave. See Insuring Women’s Futures, a recent report from the Chartered Institute of Insurers on the points in life when women’s financial security becomes vulnerable.

Three top tips for negotiating your remuneration package

Donna Hughes, founder of Launch Negotiation, shares below three top tips to prepare for salary negotiations.

1. Know your worth

Most of us tend to undervalue ourselves at the best of times, therefore it is necessary to perform market research to create an objective assessment of your worth. Make sure you review job advertisements for similar roles in the sector, as advertised on websites such as LinkedIn, Monster and Indeed. Next, initiate discussions with recruitment consultants within your industry to validate the salary range and benefits for similar positions. If you are applying for a position within your existing company, leverage your trusted network to further ascertain the salary range for the role.

2. Think outside the box

Whilst salary is often considered the most important component of the remuneration package, take time to list other variables available for negotiation. What other components of the remuneration package, besides salary, are important to you? By thinking creatively, you may be able to enhance other aspects of your remuneration package, such as bonus, holiday entitlement, pension contribution, training and development opportunities private medical insurance, company shares, company vehicle, flexibility to work from home, amongst many other factors.

3. Step forth with confidence

When you receive an offer, express your gratitude and ask for the proposal to be provided in writing, for your consideration. It’s natural for us to compare the offer against our current package; however, it’s likely that the new role will have increased responsibility, and therefore you should be compensated accordingly. How does the offer compare against the salary range for similar positions? If this is not aligned, provide feedback that demonstrates your gratitude for the offer, your excitement to start in the position, but share your insight on the remuneration package for similar roles, and request for the offer to be aligned within the uppermost part of this range. Remember, you deserve this raise, but you’ll likely need to ask for it.

Instant Offices have some additional handy tips

Have a list of reasons justifying why it would be in your manager’s best interest to pay you more with emphasis always on your ability and what you can bring to the department and company.
Prepare your manager for the upcoming discussion to allow them to also prepare; they may need to talk to the finance team, or even promote you to a more senior role. Send an email outlining your request and a suggested date for a face-to-face meeting to sit and discuss things in full.
Don’t threaten to leave, unless you’re actually prepared to. If you’re wanting a pay rise, unless you have another job offer lined up, it is not sensible to threaten to quit. Worst case scenario your employer says no and you have no other card to play, resulting in long-term doubt about your loyalty to the company. However, your best case you current employer tries to match the offer.
Think about the timing. If your company has just announced their budgets, restructuring or cuts then factor that in accordingly. You don’t have to wait for your annual review, or even a pay review, just choose a suitable time when there isn’t significant pressure on your manager or the business as a whole.

Practice, practice, practice

Donna Hughes suggests practising your negotiation skills on a regular basis, in a variety of settings, to help you refine this skill and she’s offering readers an exclusive discount on the range of workshops hosted by Launch Negotiation. For further details contact hello@launchnegotiation.com citing “WiC”

Missing Millions – the training gap in the UK workforce

11 March, 2020 By WiC

only 33% of working age people in the UK feel positive about their future career prospects
34% of respondents have either not received workplace training in the last five years or have never had any such training – equating to 17.8 million people with outdated skills.
31.3 million people (60% of respondents) feel their skills are underutilised

In its latest research report, Missing Millions, City & Guilds shines a light on the worrying reality of the UK’s skills and productivity crisis.

As productivity continues to decline, it’s widely understood that businesses and Government need to prepare to meet the demands of the workplace of the future and ensure the country has the skilled workforce it will need over the next decade. However, the research reveals that people across the nation are being denied access to training and opportunities to upskill that would enable them to be more productive.

According to the report – which is based on findings from labour market economists Emsi and a poll of 5,000 working age people – only half (53%) have received workplace training in the last three years, and a third (34%) have either never received training, or did so more than five years ago. The lack of opportunity for skills development leads to only a third (33%) of the UK working age population feeling positive about their future career prospects.

In addition to this, 60% of respondents stated that they felt the skills they did have were underutilised at least 50% of the time, suggesting that employers are not fully capitalising on the skills they already have within their businesses.

Kirstie Donnelly, Interim CEO at City & Guilds Group, commented:

Today we are fortunate that unemployment sits at its lowest level since 1975, but this masks the fact that many people in the country are in fact underemployed and could contribute far more to society if given the opportunity. By unlocking more people’s full potential, we can both increase opportunities for social mobility and help to drive up productivity.

Over the last decade, we have witnessed continued cuts to adult education funding, which has meant that certain groups of people have effectively been ‘left behind’. As the impact of Artificial Intelligence and the fourth industrial revolution continues to totally reshape the labour market, we need to see urgent action from the Government to reverse the decline of the lifelong learning sector – ensuring people in all areas have access to critical skills development and employers have access to the talent they so desperately need.

The research found:

Those from lower socio-economic groups were much less likely to have received training in the last five years (44% vs 68%) and were less satisfied with their career prospects (22% vs 39%) than those from higher socio-economic groups;
Those living in the North East of England faced a significant disadvantage in access to training and opportunities for progression when compared with other regions. Only 21% of people in the North East felt positive about the jobs market in their local area, compared to 45% in London;
Those working part-time – significantly more women than men – were also less likely to have received training in the last five years than those working full-time (61% vs 72%). Part-time workers were additionally far less likely to believe there was opportunity to progress than their full-time counterparts (22% vs 36%);
People highly value the training they do receive – 77% of those who had received workplace training stated that it had enabled them to be more effective at their job.

Kirstie continued:

From better provision of training and education across regions of the UK to better access to childcare giving more part-time workers the chance to upskill, we need to see immediate action from government and policy makers. We are already lagging behind the other G7 countries when it comes to productivity so it’s critical that we address this challenge head on if we are to retain our status as a leading global economy post Brexit. Harnessing the full potential of the people that are already in work – and are yearning to learn – would be a significant step in the right direction.

As a result of the findings in the report, City & Guilds is calling for government and policy makers, employers and individuals to take action:

Employers need to invest in skills development for people at all ages and levels of their career. They also need to get better at recognising and utilising people’s full skillsets.
Individuals need to start looking for more opportunities to upskill themselves outside of the workplace or put themselves forward for training at work, as well as showcasing their full range of skills to employers, both current and potential.
Government and policy makers need to urgently review adult education and create a system that encourages lifelong learning, retraining and reskilling. They need to provide better careers guidance and advice to people at all stages of their career.

Download Report

Visit our searchable Knowledge Bank for a range of reports and studies on gender diversity, leadership and related topics.

The Power of Exclusion – the time for raising awareness is gone

10 March, 2020 By WiC

Women’s career progression continues to be headline news. From the gender pay gap to #MeToo, Time’s Up and the ongoing under-representation of women in executive roles, it’s clear that women need a larger role at the top.

Despite the emphasis on the lack of women at board level, the gender pay gap and the need for greater diversity in management, the recent kickback about female talent development has been fueled by a fear of being seen to be favouring women or discriminating against men by taking steps to increase the ratio.

A report from Talking Talent says that the time for raising awareness is gone. Awareness hasn’t moved the needle. It’s time to take meaningful action.

Not about excluding men

However, it is really important to remember that this is not about excluding men, it’s about providing a platform that facilitates creating content and coaching that is tailored for women. In recognition that women often have a very different experience of their careers by comparison to their male colleagues. And there’s a difference. This isn’t positive discrimination. You’re not hiring a woman instead of a man, you’re nurturing your talent pipeline and ensuring you get the best from every person in your organisation

Not women only

Women-only shouldn’t mean only women. The crucial message is that women-centric is not the same as women only. This is very different to dividing genders, segregating or diminishing. Positive female-focused programmes absolutely must integrate managers and leaders of all genders, providing wrap-around inclusion and awareness sessions that inform and engage the relevant stakeholders. There’s nothing more powerful than men in senior positions promoting programmes for
women and understanding the foundations of female talent and why the organisation needs to protect the pipeline in the first place.

Return on Investment

Females improve financial results. It has been long proven that diverse leadership delivers better financial results. According to McKinsey & Co organisations in the top quartile for executive team gender diversity are reportedly 21% more likely to experience above-average profitability than companies in the fourth quartile.*

Part of the ROI for these female-centric leadership programmes is that you are actively recognising a systemic problem, a shared set of experiences and challenges, for which you are designing a solution to address.

Download Report

Visit our searchable Knowledge Bank for a range of reports and studies on gender diversity, leadership and related topics.

Successes and Failures – reflections on women’s progress in 2019

10 March, 2020 By WiC

Liz Walker, Commercial Director at Distinctly, reflects on the successes and failures for women in 2019.

Like any year, 2019 has been a mixture of successes and failures for women’s rights. This is true whether we are talking about the rights of women in employment, women in the wider UK, or for women worldwide. One of the truly positive notes to come from the December 2019 Westminster election was that this Parliament has the most female MPs in history, and for the first time, more than a third of MPs are women. On the other hand, women at intersections with other minority groups, for instance LGBT women or women with disabilities, are facing a more hostile working and living environment than ever before. For International Women’s Day 2020, while we need to celebrate the great strides that have been made, we must also discuss the room for improvement that remains.

Successes

Highest proportion of women in work ever

One of the most positive statistics this year was that in August, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) announced that the number of women in employment was at its highest level in history, at 15.46 million. This number has continued to rise into early 2020, with a new record already established at 15.61 million women in employment, equating to 72.4% of the women’s labour market. This continuing growth in women’s employment highlights that employers are becoming far better at hiring female candidates. Given that this growth in women in employment is credited with the growth in the UK economy that has occurred since 2012, this is a fantastic note of positivity.

Rise in working mothers

A major driving factor behind the growth of women in employment is that mothers are now far more likely to continue working, with approximately 72% of working-age mothers now remaining in paid work. While there is still a tendency for women who are parents to move from full-time to part-time work, this is still a positive trend, and has helped lead to a massive rise in the number of dual-earning families. This is believed to have been driven by a rise in flexible working opportunities.

1 in 3 FTSE 100 directors are now women

For the first time in history, 1 in 3 individuals on the boards of FTSE 100 companies are women. While this number falls behind target for the wider FTSE 350, this is still a fantastic growth given that only a decade ago women made up only 12.5% of FTSE 100 board members. With a growth in women in leadership roles, we can expect changes in wider workplace culture to continue at an ever accelerating rate. However, we still need to bear in mind that this is only the start of the change that is needed. The report also stresses the fact that some roles, such as finance directors, are still well below the 33% target, showing there is still significant room for improvement.

Failures

Statistics fail to show underlying problems

Unfortunately, while there are some very positive statistics for 2019, they fail to account for some underlying structural problems. First, women are still expected to be the primary provider of childcare, carrying out 60% more unpaid work than men, especially in terms of childcare provision. This is partly influenced by the fact that Shared Parental Leave, designed to allow parents to split the workload of looking after their newborn between them, has seen abysmal uptake. Only 9,200 new parents used the scheme in 2017/18, which was just over 1% of those eligible, highlighting the fact that cultural changes around childcare are far from complete. This has certainly not been helped by the fact that the cost of childcare for children under 2 has risen by 5%, meaning that in attempting to return to work, many women would actually be incurring a financial cost.

Similar socio-cultural issues can be seen elsewhere — for instance, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), women are still expected to undertake the majority of housework. This is believed to be a major factor behind many parents not taking up full-time roles when they return to work, even where it has a major impact on their pay. These underlying cultural problems are being slowly eroded, but they are still impacting the ability of working women to work in the roles they would like to, due at least in part to the need to balance their responsibilities as primary caregiver to their children against pursuing their careers.

Women are still facing pay-based discrimination, even in government

Mandatory gender pay gap reporting has now existed for companies with 250 employees and above for three years. Despite this fact, women are still routinely being paid less than their male colleagues, with little change to the 11% average pay difference seen over the past two years. Even women employed directly by the government, who purport to be looking to end discrimination against women, are failing to be paid an equal wage for the work they do. While 13 of the 18 government departments large enough to conduct reporting had managed to decrease their gender pay gap, one saw no change, and the remaining four saw an increase. Of the 18 departments, only one, the Department for Work and Pensions, had no reported gender pay gap. This raises serious questions about how the government could possibly hope to succeed in changing the private sector pay gap when it is busy failing its female employees.

Women in niche industries are still being failed by employers

Across the STEM and creative industries, women are still being left behind. While there are definitely positives, such as the number of women engineers doubling in the past decade, and 1 million women now working in STEM occupations, this shift has not been occurring consistently. In some sectors within STEM, women have actually dropped as a percentage of the workforce despite increased numbers, due to an even higher number of men entering these fields. A good example of this is Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) managers, where despite growing every year since 2015, the number of women in SET has dropped heavily as a percentage.

In fact, between June 2018 and June 2019, over 300,000 men entered STEM employment, compared with only 150,000 women. With men thus offering an even larger proportion of the overall talent pool, they are statistically more likely to receive promotions and pay rises, further contributing to the marginalisation of women in the STEM workforce.

This same struggle can be seen in the creative industries. Despite a 30.6% growth in the creative industries between 2011 and 2018, women still make up only 37% of the employees, with a growth rate of under 3% in the past 6 years. Between 2017 and 2018, the number of women in creative fields actually dropped, despite overall growth. Clearly, despite the fact that the picture across the wider workforce looks so positive, for women in STEM or the creative industries, there is a lot of work still to be done. As two major growth industries in the UK for the past decade, continued domination of these fields by men implies that — without major changes — gender imbalance in the UK economy is likely to persist for a long time.

See also Visualizing the data: Women’s representation in society (released by the UN)

Equality – The long and winding road with no end in sight

8 March, 2020 By WiC

On International Women’s Day 2020

Women in the insurance and financial services sector are effectively working 123 days, more than a third of the year, for free. That’s twice the average across all sectors.
There are still only 6 female CEOs in the FTSE 100.
Three quarters of women say their workplace makes it more challenging for women to advance their careers than men and nearly half of men agree with them.
Globally, the WEF anticipates the economic participation gap between women and men will take 257 years to close.

Women are still in the minority while representing 50 percent of the population

At the beginning of March The Hampton Alexander Review announced that it had sent letters to 63 companies asking how they intended to improve their gender diversity. The majority of these companies were FTSE 250 and 350, but the Review’s letters include 4 FTSE 100 companies, which despite having reached the 30 percent target of having board positions filled by women, still have all male executive committees. Moreover, men are still seven times more likely to be finance directors than women.

The Fawcett Society’s Sex and Power Index 2020 reported a “Dismally slow pace of change with stark inequalities continuing to thrive in the UK today.”

No matter what sector of business or society is considered, women are still in the minority whilst representing half of the population. Only 2 out of 12 Supreme Justices are female and in the Civil Service and Academia women account for around 30 percent of senior roles. In Parliament, women make up 34 percent of MPs and 27 per cent of Peers.

It’s a global issue

These UK figures are mirrored globally. The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020, reveals that gender parity will not be attained this century.

Drilling down into the facts and figures, it will take 95 years to close the gender gap in global political representation, with women in 2019 holding 25.2% of parliamentary seats and 21.2% of ministerial positions.

And in terms of global economic participation, the WEF anticipates the gender gap will take 257 years to close. Worryingly, this is an increase of over 25 per cent on its 2019 report. Yes, we’re going backwards.

Female FTSE 100 CEOs and the Pipeline

Returning to the UK and representation of women at the top of business, there are currently 6 female FTSE 100 Chief Executives. That’s the same number as two years ago and when one steps down, a female replacement is by no means guaranteed. More positively, the FTSE 100 insurance company, Admiral, announced on 5 March that Milena Mondini de Focatiis, who is currently head of UK and European insurance, will take over as CEO next year.

Whether women with the necessary skills, experience and ability aren’t in the workforce or whether those carrying out executive search simply aren’t looking for them, is a moot question.

Many senior women in professional services feel that the situation is no better, perhaps worse, than when they started work in the 70s and 80s. They now see women and men entering their professionals in equal numbers. Yet, for the last decade the percentage of senior roles held by women remains around 25 percent and when they look at the women coming through the organisation, there simply aren’t enough of them still in the workforce in their 40s to make a significant impact at the very top.

A Grant Thornton report released in 2017 revealed that the UK was in the bottom 6 countries in the world for female representation in senior management roles. This is nothing short of shocking.

It’s not surprising that senior and junior women alike are concerned by the low numbers of females progressing within their organisations. As we move towards the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, the picture is pretty grim.

Retaining women beyond their late 30s is a significant issue. And women drop out not just because of what’s known as the “motherhood” penalty but for other reasons, too. Many of them to do with corporate culture. Of course younger women ask questions about how they will manage a career and bringing up a family, but they also talk about the barriers that still exist for women progressing their careers.

Workplace culture isn’t female friendly and men agree

Research published in 2019 by Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, backs up this view on cultural barriers. In a survey of nearly 6000 employees, split 53 per cent male, 47 per cent female, it discovered that 74 per cent of UK female employees said that their workplace culture makes it more challenging for women to advance their careers than men and, interestingly, 42 per cent of men agreed.

Interestingly, 81 percent of senior female employees said that their workplace culture presented career advancement challenges for women, yet only 72 percent of junior female employees reported those same challenges.

Surprisingly half of senior female employees report they face these challenges ‘always’ or ‘often’ indicating that “things get worse not better” as women progress their careers.

Young women and men enter professional services in equal numbers and are confident that they’ll compete with their male colleagues on an equal basis, but by their late 20s, early 30s the men begin to push back. The women are surprised and often for the first time realise that the playing field in the workplace, unlike that at school, university, graduate entry programme isn’t as level as they thought. In fact, they realise that not only is the playing field not level, they’re not even sure of the rules of the game.

The classic cartoon showing a group of men and one woman seated around a boardroom table illustrates perfectly one of the issues.

There isn’t a woman who hasn’t experienced saying something that goes unheard only to find that when a man says the exact same thing it’s lauded as a “great idea”. Not only is the woman not heard, the man gets the credit. It’s a double whammy that hits really hard.

Yet the Murrays Edwards research reveals that the commonly viewed challenges for women such as their being interrupted in meetings, not being credited for their work and men having access to informal networks and sponsors are ranked far lower than expected.

What comes at the very top are women being judged more negatively when they behave like men, and men and women being evaluated differently.

Emma Codd, Managing Partner for Talent at Deloitte, was Women in the City’s Woman of Achievement Award Winner in 2015. When questioned about her success in increasing the number of female partners at the firm by 18 percent in one year, Emma She said she had questioned every unreasonable reason “not” to promote women – for example saying

“She’s not quite ready” or “She has a two year old, she’s probably going to have another child” or “Her husband’s recently been promoted, she’ll need to support him”. These “reasons” are rarely, if ever, said about men.

However, effecting deeply embedded cultural change, that is societal as well as organisational, is difficult.

Will the situation improve?

The Women in the City Knowledge Bank features many of the reports that have been published in the last 10 years. These put forward the case for increasing the numbers of women in senior roles – but very little has changed. There have been initiatives, there have been programmes. All try to “fix” women, but women don’t need fixing so it’s not surprising that we’re getting nowhere fast.

The Women’s Business Council 2017 Report predicted that by 2024, the UK would need nearly 2 million new managers and if those roles were to be split equally between men and women, 1.5 million of those new managers would need to be women.

Currently, 73% of entry-level roles are occupied by women, yet only 34% of managers, directors and senior officials in the UK are women. In the 6 years to 2017 this proportion increased by only one percentage point.

These figures indicate the scope of the problem. It’s a very long winding road and the end is way, way ahead.

WiC