Chartered Management Institute comment on Equal Pay Day

Ann Francke, Chief Executive of Chartered Management Institute (CMI), said:

“We should have put this annual marker to bed years ago and be in a far better position on equality of pay by now.

“But we’re still not there yet. There are reasons why women lag behind men in pay, not least because working practices haven’t kept pace with how employees, particularly women, want or need to work.

“Our own recent research with The Work Foundation found that there is much to be done by businesses to modernise their working practices and embrace agile working, but there is a deep rooted perception of ‘office-culture’.

“Indeed, despite the huge recent shift by many to hybrid working there is a mismatch between attitudes of some managers and their teams. There is a real perception of ‘office culture’ and some managers are unwilling to implement hybrid-working practices. Our results also suggest women are less comfortable than men in discussing a remote work request with their manager. Women are also less likely than men to feel their organisation is inclusive of remote workers. This needs to change.

“As we’ve said in our work around gender equality and workplace inclusion, the pandemic has created even greater challenges for women in the workplace. Women are more likely to have lost their jobs during the pandemic, meaning British businesses have lost hard won gains over the last few years, which is bad for business and bad for our economic recovery.

“You can’t cookie cut how your employees work now - one size doesn’t fit all and the savviest managers have realised that.  Women’s contribution to business is huge. Particularly given the current buoyant job market, managers need to take a closer, more thoughtful look at how they support their female colleagues and work hard to ensure pay is fair and practices are geared towards retaining them and helping them thrive.”

Notes

Equal Pay Day is a national campaign led by Fawcett Society in the UK. It marks the day where women effectively, on average, stop earning relative to men because of the gender pay gap. https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/equal-pay-day-2021

The gender pay gap for all UK employees increased in the year up to April 2021, recent data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has shown.

The Chartered Management Institute (CMI) research with The Work Foundation.

Research collated by the House of Commons has shown that women were more likely to be in sectors shut down by Covid, and were more likely to have lost their job or been furloughed. CMI research from February this year has also shown the challenges that working mothers face in the workplace; they are more likely to be in communication less than once a week with their manager than UK employees overall (29% compared to 23%).