Our response to Government's equality priorities

The new Coalition Government announced yesterday its outline equality policies. These included the fact that it will; extend the right to flexible working to all employees; it will promote equal pay and take a range of measures to end discrimination in the workplace; and it will promote gender equality on the boards of listed companies.  Below Alison Platt the Divisional Managing Director, Europe, Bupa and Chair of Opportunity Now comments on the proposed polices;

“We welcome the Government’s prioritisation of equality and diversity as a business issue and the broad themes which it has identified as critical.  The importance will be in the detail and at Opportunity Now we look forward to working with the government to ensure that this detail is both workable and pragmatic.”

Flexible working
“Flexible working is not a burden to business but is a way of creating more agile and responsive organisations” says Platt. “The move to offer the right to request flexible working to all employees should be welcomed and seen as a way of tapping into a diverse pool of talent, a way of creating more flexible organisations and a way of engaging people and reducing overheads. A flexible approach to job design and the way jobs are carried out needs to be seen through a lens of business success and delivery. When organisations get this right they really see tangible business benefits.”

Promoting equal pay
“Pay inequality between men and women is certainly not good for women, for society, the economy nor individual organisations. In 2010 a person’s gender should not have such a significant impact on their pay packet. We have always advocated voluntary pay audits as they are an important step in addressing this issue. Equal pay legislation was brought in nearly 40 years ago – and we still have a persistent  and shocking  pay gap between men and women. Pay and reward are essential for motivating staff and engendering loyalty. It is part of being a responsible employer.  If organisations take a head in the sand approach it could be very costly financially and in terms of reputation. With the average woman working full-time losing out on more than £330,000 over the course of her working life, we must seize this opportunity to speed up the pace of change before yet another generation misses out.”

Gender equality on the boards of listed companies

“Diversity is a key factor in helping us to create companies and organisations that are fit for purpose post recession argues Alison Platt. “At the moment women hold only 12% of FTSE directorships, and only 5.2% of executive directorships.  25 companies in the FTSE 100 still have no women at all on their boards at all. Increasing the diversity of our boardrooms will help us to avoid identikit thinking and encourage a dynamic mix of experience, perspectives, attitudes and approaches, which ultimately leads to better leadership and better businesses. There is currently a worrying leak in the talent pipeline which filters out many talented and high performing individuals at every level.”