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Opportunity Now stands for balanced boards, equal pay and flexible working.

Balanced boards
Women make up 12.5% of FTSE 100 boards up from 9% in 1999. The gender mix of boards is the signal measure of gender equality and leadership in the world of business. It is the "tip of the iceberg" indicating the likely equality of career progression at management levels below the board and offering insight into how organisations manage their talent pipeline further down the organisation.

Research clearly shows that having more women on the board is a good business decision. A study of 353 Fortune 500 companies found that the 88 with the highest representation of women on top management teams experienced significantly higher returns on equity and total return to shareholders compared to the 89 firms with the lowest female representation.

Boardrooms need to promote independent thought, facilitate debate and encourage informed discussion in order to ensure that organisations are equipped to anticipate problems, identify risks and deal with the changing and challenging landscape. Evidence shows that inclusive and diverse boards are better boards. They are better able to understand their customers and stakeholders. They benefit from broader perspectives, new ideas, vigorous challenge which in turn leads to better and more robust decision making.

Opportunity Now members have more balanced boards than the corporate average. Our members work with us to share good practice and set internal targets. Two decades of leadership by our members has been good for UK plc, but insufficient; we now campaign for:

• A requirement in the UK Combined Code for Corporate Governance that organisations set public targets for the number of women on their board and report on action and progress.
• All board positions to be advertised externally.
•  All board nomination committees to be balanced.
• Women to make up 50% of all new appointments to the boards of public bodies by the end of this parliament, and for all public boards to be balanced by 2020.
• Organisations to expressly monitor and manage their talent pipelines with due regard to gender.

We ask that Opportunity Now members commit to:

• Set a public target to increase the diversity of their board and report on progress in the public domain
• Advertise all board positions externally and have balanced nomination committees by 2012.
• Identify areas, (ie within the management pipeline) and functions within their organisation where women are underrepresented compared with the norm and set targets to better balance women‟ representation.
  

 

Equal pay
The median pay gap between men and women is 22%. At current rates of progress it may close by 2085. Pay inequality in an organisation provides a key indicator of both structural and cultural barriers to equality and diversity. Unequal pay contributes to women‟ poverty in work and retirement and adversely affects their partners and children; in campaigning for equal pay, Opportunity Now and its members seek to create public benefit beyond the benefit to business.

Opportunity Now campaigns for:

• The implementation of Section 78 of the Equality Act, which creates a power for Ministers to require employers to publish information relating to the gender pay gap.

We ask that Opportunity Now members commit to:

• Work together and with government to develop appropriate reporting measures for pay.
• Conduct an equal pay audit by 2014 and put the results of the pay audit in the public domain by 2016.
• Adopt equal pay best practice, not just as a workplace entitlement, but as a mechanism to create a fairer and more equal society. Such best practice would include corrective and preventative action and robust pay processes such as job evaluation, transparent bonus systems and training for those involved in pay decisions.

Adopt equal pay best practice, not just as a workplace entitlement, but as a mechanism to create a fairer and more equal society. Such best practice would include corrective and preventative action and robust pay processes such as job evaluation, transparent bonus systems and training for those involved in pay decisions.

Flexible working
Increasing women‟ participation in the labour market could be worth between £15 and £23 billion pounds or 1.3 to 2.0 per cent of GDP. Flexible working arrangements are the key means to keep people in work at times when they must also manage non-work calls on their time. Flexible working risks becoming a new form of segregation, a "Mummy Track", or an option available only to people less able to participate in traditional ways of work. In fact it allows businesses to retain the talents of any employee through periods of change in their lives. Flexible working also keeps people in work who may otherwise become unemployed and so reduces poverty and social exclusion. It should therefore become a key, mainstream business imperative and not be seen as a fringe „omen‟ issue‟

Opportunity Now campaigns for:

•  Legislation to enact the government‟ committment to extend the right to request flexible working to all employees

We ask that Opportunity Now members commit to:

• Extend the right to request flexible working options to all employees by 2012.
• Embed agile and flexible working practices at all levels and in all areas of their organisation, particularly at management and senior leadership levels .
• Monitor the progression and pay of those with flexible working patterns and address any anomalies.