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Best Practice
- Agile Working
- Diversity in the Downturn
- Equality Act 2010
- Evaluate Your Organisation
- Exemplar Employers
- Focus On Fathers
- FAQs Gender Diversity
- Getting Women on Board
- Global Diversity
- Living Diversity
- Policy
- ON Toolkits
- ON Case Studies
- RfO Toolkits
- RFO Case Studies

Frequently Asked Questions about Gender Diversity

How do I set equality/diversity goals?
What aspects do I need to consider when creating a business case for diversity?
How can I use the business case to engage employees at all levels of the organisation?
How can I prevent occupational segregation in the workplace?
What different types of mentoring should I consider implementing?
How do I establish a mentoring programme?
How do I measure the success of a mentoring programme?
How do I set up a women’s network?
How will I measure the success of the women’s network?
How do I set up a talent management programme?
Should I introduce equality/diversity training?
How do I conduct and Equal Pay Audit?
What are the different types of flexible working that I need to consider?
How do I support my managers when implementing flexible working arrangements?
How can I use organisational events to create an equality culture and how can this be measured?
What should I be monitoring in order to measure the impact of diversity?
How do I measure the impact of diversity on my organisation?

How do I set equality/diversity goals?
The way you set goals, targets and strategy depends on the culture of your organisation. However, there are certain basic principles which make the process more effective:
- Make sure you set equality/diversity goals which will help deliver your organisational goals and business strategy, taking into consideration: the results of internal statistical monitoring; best practice; and the results of scanning the environment for opportunities and threats.
- It is crucial to integrate your equality/diversity strategy into the business strategy, you should consider:
-          whether individual units/departments/teams be required to produce their own plans to deliver the diversity strategy
-          whether line managers have equality/diversity gals in their performance objectives
-          whether individuals outside the HR department be tasked with specific actions
- Identify and establish links with other areas of the organisation which will needs to be involved in developing the diversity goals and strategy ie. Trade Unions, employee networks, sales/marketing and finance.
- The equality/diversity strategy should contain your goals and your vision – what will your organisation look like when you have achieved your goals?
- Decide what actions need to be taken to achieve your goals and who will be responsible for reporting and completing these actions.
- Decide on milestones so you will be able to measure whether or not they are on track to deliver.
- Decide how the performance of the business units/teams and managers will be assessed. For example, should they be asked to meet targets or should they be required to demonstrate behavioural competences linked to promoting diversity.
- Lastly remember that the more that business units/departments/teams and managers are responsible for delivering the diversity and the more the strategy is linked to the business goals and strategy, the more integrated equality/diversity will become into your organisation’s activities.
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What aspects do I need to consider when creating a business case for diversity?
Aspects that need to be considered include:
- The workplace – movements in recruitment, retention and performance
- The marketplace – serving an increasingly diverse and demanding customer base
- Investors – seeking a better return in improved performance in the first two areas
- The community – improving corporate reputation, public confidence and maintaining a ‘licence to operate’ in the community
Conduct a baseline study and then measure the impact equality programmes have in increasing effectiveness and reducing costs. Look at these areas in details:
-          Attracting the best employees
-          Increasing commitment
-          Improving quality and productivity
-          Improving organisational flexibility
-          Increasing innovation
-          Reducing turnover costs
-          Reducing absence
-          Avoiding cost of legal action

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How can I use the business case to engage employees at all levels of the organisation?

Once the business case has been written, think about whether it needs to be tailored to engage the interest of different groups: you may want to stress different elements to senior leaders, who are developing long-term strategy, than to line managers concerned with staffing and performance over a six month period.
Think about the media you use to disseminate the business case: putting it on the intranet may not be enough. Make sure that all communication about equality and diversity includes the business case. Consider using staff magazines and newsletters, make it part of all people management training courses, put it in your annual report, include it in the employee handbook and link it to all equality and diversity policies.
Senior leaders should explain the business case in all of their public statements which discuss equality and diversity. Equality and diversity should be included in as many public statements as possible.

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How can I prevent occupational segregation in the workplace?

Check your workforce data to see where women are underrepresented. This could be in particular functions, levels in the hierarchy or geographical areas.
Review both your internal and external recruiting methods. Sometimes employers focus too much on getting new women into the organisation and overlook those women already there who could be up-skilled to work in a new area.
For both internal and external recruitment, use leaders and gender champions to raise the profile of the work you are doing and demonstrate your commitment to getting women into areas where they are underrepresented.

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What different types of mentoring should I consider implementing?
You may want to consider the following:
- one to one mentoring: one mentee and a more senior mentor who provides guidance, coaching and advice
- mentoring circles: a collaborative learning group with one or two mentors and a larger number of mentees
- mentoring panels: senior leaders meeting with lower level staff to provide information and address issues and concerns
- peer to peer mentoring: matching mentees at a similar level to share expertise and different perspectives
- reverse or upward mentoring: a lower level employee mentoring a more senior leader to teach the senior leader new skills or provide a fresh perspective
- team mentoring: one mentee working with a team of mentors who each provide assistance in a specific developmental area
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How do I establish a mentoring programme?
- Decide how to match up the partners. You can do it yourself or let the participants chose. Some employers use an intranet site to let partners find each other. Others prefer to retain more control over the process, particularly in the early stages of the programme
- Pre-training for both groups is critical to explain the mentoring process, help them get the best out of it and to understand the level of commitment involved
- Encourage mentors and mentees to think about their expectations before the first meeting and set objectives for the partnership. These should be discussed at the first meeting as part of the informal mentoring contact. Other issues which should be agreed at this early stage are:
o        Confidentiality and trust
o        Number and frequency of meetings
o        Where the meetings will take place
o        Who initiates the meetings
o        Who sets the agenda for meetings
o        What areas are legitimate to discuss
o        Determining boundaries within the relationship
o        What if something goes wrong such as personality difficulties?
o        When the relationship should be terminated
- Decide how you will keep in touch with the partnerships through the programme. You will need to find the right balance between offering support and encouragement and letting the relationships develop in their own way
- Make sure that mentors are kept informed of the mentees’ career development (for example courses attended, promotion opportunities, and secondments). You cannot always rely on the mentee telling them
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How do I measure the success of a mentoring programme?
It is important to find a balance between ensuring that the programme is adding value to the participants and the organisation and not overburdening those involved with bureaucracy.
Options for measuring include:
- The progress of mentees, by self-assessment, assessment by mentor or by mentee’s line manager
- Feedback from mentees and mentors
- Number of partnerships still active after six months and one year
- Number of partnerships that decide to continue beyond the end of the programme (if the programme is time limited)
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How do I set up a women’s network?
- Find out what women in the organisation want from a network (e.g. run focus groups, send out questionnaires, set up an intranet chat room). Research conducted by Cranfield University School of Management with Opportunity Now suggests that women join networks for:
o        Career advice/advancement
o        To understand the business better
o        To help others
o        To support/share experiences
- Get senior women in the organisation involved; their support will be crucial
- Decide whether or not the network as a whole, or certain events, should be open to men. This will depend on your organisation’s culture: be prepared to defend this decision!
- Whether or not the network is women only, it is important to get senior male managers interested and supportive of the network from the start
- Draw up a business case showing what the network will provide to the organisation as well as to individual women
- Use this to secure resources
- Give the network clear terms of reference
- Define its relationship with the HR and Diversity departments. How independent do you want the network to be?
- Establish a steering group of enthusiastic women to run the network and ask them to draw up a plan of work
- Plan an eye-catching launch event and generate as much interest as possible. Get your Chief Executive or equivalent to speak at the event to demonstrate support
- Consider setting up small groups of women to tackle particular actions on the work plan.
- Sell active involvement in the network as a professional, as well as personal development opportunity (e.g. secure access to senior management; ensure involvement is accredited in the performance appraisal process).
- Think about how best to communicate the work of the network to get more women involved. Publicise events and success stories in the staff newsletter and on the intranet, send out personal invitations to women, publicise it though learning and development courses and don’t forget that existing members are your best recruiters.
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How will I measure the success of the women’s network?
In our experience organisations use a number of measures:
- The take up and membership
- The success of events run
- The impact on women members and women as a whole in the organisation
- Measures associated with the network’s other activities (e.g. number of mentoring relationships established)
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How do I set up a talent management programme?
- Firstly you need to establish selection criteria:
o Identify characteristics of talented leaders in your organisation. These are the personal traits which a senior leader should demonstrate
o Identify the competencies which you expect senior leaders to demonstrate. These are the skills and behaviours which senior leaders with these personal traits demonstrate in the workplace
- What skills and knowledge and practical work experience will senior leaders need? This will help you to decide on the content of the talent management programme
- Decide how the talent management programme will link to other development opportunities. Will participants have priority access to mentoring programmes, coaching, training and development opportunities etc?
- Make sure senior leadership are engaged and if possible involved with the programme. Their sponsorship will be important particularly if you are trying to manage career moves across a number of different business areas
- Define the relationship between talent management and HR functions. Who will have HR responsibility for those in the pool
- There should be close links between those in the talent management team and the HR internal and external recruiting team to ensure that there is no conflict with the fairness and transparency of internal and external recruitment procedures
- Consider whether membership of the talent programme should be recognised in the reward package or whether existing performance-related benefits are sufficient
- The talent management programme needs to be closely linked with the succession plan to utilise the talented individuals being developed through the programme. If succession management is not in place and integrated with the programme then you risk the worst possible scenario – the talent takes the development on offer and often looks elsewhere for better career opportunities. The succession plan should focus on identifying, growing and retaining the talent already within the organisation
- Make sure that your management information systems are being fully utilised to support talent and succession planning programmes
- Identify the right group of employees is critical in developing a talent pipeline to senior leadership. This will help you decide where your intervention will have most effect
- How will you select talent for the programme?
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Should I introduce equality/diversity training?

Equality/diversity training is an extremely significant tool in the development of equality/diversity behaviours. The method each organisation selects to deliver this training can vary significantly; the choice of method can often be affected by industry and workforce style, geographical dispersal of team, and organisational culture.
The content of equality/diversity training can be shaped to need. However Opportunity Now recommends that consideration of legislation, the business case for equality/diversity, and skills and behaviours to support equality/diversity goals, form a core of your training. Furthermore, to fully integrate equality/diversity behaviours within your organisational culture, training should be actively encouraged at non-management, management, and board level, as well as across the organisation functions.
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How do I conduct and Equal Pay Audit?
The Equal Opportunities Commission recommends a five-step equal pay review model:
Step 1
Deciding the scope of the review and identifying the data required
You need to decide the scope of the review and which employees are going to be included. At this stage you should decide who should be on the project team, whether workforce representatives such as Trade Unions should be involved and whether you want to use outside experts. You also need to decide what information will need to be gathered to conduct the review.
Step 2
Identifying where men and women are doing equal work
You will need to carry out one or more of the following checks: like work; work rated as equivalent; work of equal value. These checks determine where men and women are doing equal work. This is the foundation of an equal pay review.
Step 3
Collecting and comparing pay data to identify any significant equal pay gaps
Once you have determined where women and men are doing equal work, you need to collect and compare pay information to identify any significant gaps between men’s pay and women’s pay. This is done by:
- Calculating average basic pay and total average earnings
- Comparing access to and amounts received of each element of pay
Step 4
Establishing the causes of any significant pay gaps and deciding whether these are free from discrimination
- Find out which aspects of the pay system are contributing to the gaps between men’s and women’s pay and why
- Find out if there is a genuine reason for the difference in pay that has nothing to do with the sex of the jobholder
Step 5
Developing an Equal Pay Action Plan or reviewing and monitoring
Developing an Equal Pay Action Plan is for organisations with gaps between men's and women's pay for which there is no satisfactory explanation. The plan should include arrangements to:
- Provide equal pay
- Change the pay policies and practices that contribute to unequal pay
- Introduce an Equal Pay Policy
- Introduce ongoing monitoring of pay outcomes by gender
Introducing an Equal Pay Policy and ongoing monitoring will help ensure your pay system is, and remains, free from sex bias.
The EOC Equal Pay Review Kit sets out the detail of the model recommended here and provides supporting guidance notes. See www.eoc.org.uk or telephone 0845 601 5901.

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What are the different types of flexible working that I need to consider?

Flexible working represents the ability for an organisation to change the working arrangements in respect of time, location or pattern. There are no hard and fast rules as to what will work for any individual and here are some examples: ·
Part-time working: Work is generally considered part-time when employers are contracted to work anything less than full-time hours. ·
Term-time working: A worker remains on a permanent contract but can take paid/unpaid leave during school holidays. ·
Job-sharing: A form of part-time working where two (or occasionally more) people share the responsibility for a job between them. ·
Flexitime: Allows employees to choose, within certain set limits, when to begin and end work.
Compressed hours: Compressed working weeks (or fortnights) don't necessarily involve a reduction in total hours or any extension in individual choice over which hours are worked. The central feature is reallocation of work into fewer and longer blocks during the week.
Annual hours: The period within which full-time employees must work is defined over a whole year.
Working form home on a regular basis: Workers regularly spend time working from home.
Mobile working/teleworking: This permits employees to work all or part of their working week at a location remote from the employer's workplace.
Career breaks: Career breaks, or sabbaticals, are extended periods of leave – normally unpaid – of up to five years or more.

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How do I support my managers when implementing flexible working arrangements?
Getting started
·         Remember that support to managers needs to come through a variety of media. Consult managers on how they would like to receive support. Key means of delivery will be through training and development, through a tool kit/handbook and via their own line manger
·         Support should combine ‘push’ and ‘pull’; i.e. you cannot rely on managers to pull the help they need out of the system; sometimes they need to be pushed towards it
·         When developing a support programme draw on existing best practice from within your organisation and outside. But remember that each organisation’s culture is unique so best practise from other organisations will need to be adapted and piloted in your culture
·         Provide a forum, such as a focus group, where managers can safely express their fears, concerns and perceived skills gaps
·         Consult with Trade Unions and other employee welfare groups
Developing a toolkit
·         Use the information from these consultations to draw up a first draft of a toolkit which lays out the basic skills and knowledge which managers need to successfully implement flexible working
·         The toolkit will need to:
- provide a strong costed business case clearly demonstrating the benefits of allowing team members to work flexibly
- demonstrate senior management commitment (e.g. an introduction by CEO or equivalent)
- detail flexible working options
- anticipate most frequently asked questions about options, such as benefit and pension implications, changes to contract etc
- provide guidance to managers on implementing and managing flexible working options, addressing issues such as:
- setting goals and objectives
- managing performance and career planning
- redesigning work
- managing team dynamics
- maintaining and improving team communication
·         Once a final draft has been produced it should be presented to senior management to ensure their support in its implementation
Embedding the toolkit skill set
·         Flexible working should be communicated as part of a broader work/life balance programme for all employees so it is not just pigeon-holed as ‘part-time working for mothers’
·         The content of the toolkit needs to be incorporated into existing people management training, as a module, or provided as a stand alone training course for all managers
·         Consider whether training for flexible working needs to be mandatory or voluntary for managers. This will depend on the culture and level of existing management skills in your organisation
·         The ability to manage flexible teams should be a management competency, reflected in your performance system
Communicating culture change
·         Draw up a communication and marketing strategy for the flexible working options and the manager’s toolkit
·         A communication plan should target both line managers specifically and all staff in general
·         Make sure that senior management commitment is very visible during the launch
·         Seek out and publicise flexible working role models at all levels in the organisation
·         Don’t forget that communicating the importance of work/life balance and the toolkit needs to be an ongoing activity
Measuring success
·         Monitor success by measuring the take-up of the various flexible working options in your organisation and gathering employee feedback via surveys etc. This will allow you to identify problem areas where programmes are not effectively fulfilling employee needs or where they are not being effectively implemented by managers
·         Flexible working options programmes and the manager’s toolkit should both be regularly reviewed and improved in the light of this information

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How can I use organisational events to create an equality culture and how can this be measured?
o Think about the aims and objectives for the event. You should think not only about what the participants should get out of it, but also what the organisation should be getting out of it
o How will you measure the success of the event?
- Number of participants
- Participant feedback on the day
- Tracking impact on participants over time (e.g. impact on behaviour and achievements)
- External/internal publicity generated by event
- Interest in new/repeat events
- Number of new/satellite initiatives launched as a result of the event
o        Think carefully about the sorts of speakers and activities that will appeal to the prospective audience. If you want men as well as women attending think about what will attract their attention too
o        Make sure that senior leaders in your organisation are openly supportive and if possible attend on the day
o        Review all options for communicating the event in advance. Options include
- send personal invitations
- publicise it on the intranet
- publicise it in staff newsletters
- send all-staff emails
- put up poster/flyers
- include it in team briefings
o        Don’t forget to gather feedback from participants on the day
o        Monitor the number of participants and if possible collect data such as gender, working pattern (part time/full time), department, geographical location and hierarchical level. This will allow you to identify whether the event is having equal impact across the organisation or whether you need to do follow-up work targeting specific areas/employee groups
o        Celebrate you achievements: publicise the event afterwards (see communications channels above) including positive feedback from participants

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What should I be monitoring in order to measure the impact of diversity?
- Monitoring should take place as part of a well-communicated equality and diversity programme, based on a strong business case. If staff understand that monitoring the diversity of the employee population and employee attitudes contributes to your organisation being more effective, gathering information from them will be much easier.
- Identify employee monitoring already undertaken in different parts of the organisation. If appropriate, make a business case for linking all databases under one system: this should be possible using an off the shelf HR software tool. This will make monitoring more effective and ultimately less resource-intensive.
- As a minimum, an integrated monitoring system should include:
- Consider allowing employees to view and update their own personal data on-line, using password-protected access to the system. This will save you resources and increase the accuracy of the database
- Decide who will have access to all or specific areas of the data on the system. Where possible, transparency is the best policy.
- Make sure that the organisation and employees are aware of their rights and responsibilities under the Data Protection Act (see ww.dataprotection.gov.uk)
- Ensure that you can interrogate the data not just by gender but by all other aspect of diversity e.g. gender and working pattern, gender and hierarchical level, gender and disability, gender and ethnicity etc
- You also need to be able to monitor the take-up of equality and diversity initiatives, such as the number of employees taking up flexible working options, diversity training or mentoring
- Match data from monitoring with data on employee perceptions from staff surveys. This will allow you to identify trends over time and in particular areas of the business and make a link between employee satisfaction and other changes within the organisation
- Collecting data is pointless unless you do something with it. Use data from monitoring to analyse trends in your equality and diversity profile and activities and identify where an intervention would impact on the performance of the organisation
- Make sure that information from the monitoring is communicated throughout the organisation. Senior managers need to consider equality and diversity as part of broader business issues such as talent retention and customer satisfaction. All employees need to understand why data is colleted, how it is used and how it can help the organisation improve its effectiveness
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How do I measure the impact of diversity on my organisation?
·         It may not be possible to establish a direct link between gender equality/diversity initiatives and changes in the organisation; other factors will always come into play. However, monitoring changes over the period that initiatives and programmes have been in place allows you to make a very persuasive case for their positive impact on the business
·         Not all of these measures are appropriate for every organisation but at least some of them can be used in your organisation
·         Monitor changes in employee metrics:
- change in turnover
- changes in abs
- changes in maternity return rates
- changes in recruitment and promotion rates for women
- changes in employee perceptions (through staff surveys, exit interview etc)
· Where possible, cost the impact of these changes. For example using the average cost of replacing an employee (100-150% of salary) allows you to quickly calculate the financial benefits to the business of a drop in turnover or increase in maternity return rate
· Have you improved your position as an employer of choice
- measure the number and quality of job applicants
- measure the percentage of female job applicants
- measure the percentage who decline a job offer in favour of another employer (this is particularly significant in graduate recruitment)
·         Monitor changes in productivity of employees (for example per capita turnover). Can this be linked to increased employee satisfaction?
·         Is their evidence of increased creativity and innovation from teams where both men and women are well represented? This will be harder to measure empirically in some organisations than other. If you can only gather anecdotal evidence then use it, it can still be very powerful
·         Monitor changes in customer satisfaction either through quantitative data (number of customers) or qualitative data collection (satisfaction surveys). Is there a link with changes in employee satisfaction?
·         Monitor changes in the profile of your customer base. Are you attracting more women customers and clients?
·         Has public perception of your organisation changed? This can be monitored through press coverage, winning external awards etc
·         Has your overall business performance improved?
Use the measurements that you have made. The reason for measuring impact is to reinforce the business case, motivate your organisation to do even better with equality and diversity and to make it part of good working practice in every aspect of what you do because it will help you to do it better

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