📰 1LV Round up: Once a month we will bring you a selection of articles, interviews and news that will make you think about gender equality and women in the workplace. ⬇️
Gender pay gap widens for the first time in more than a decade
Equal Pay Day 2024 fell on 20 November – two days earlier than it did in 2024 – as the gender pay gap has widened for the first time since 2013. According to the Fawcett Society gender equality campaign, the day on which women stop being paid compared to men – the point in the year when, on average, women effectively work for free – shows ‘our economy isn’t working for women’. In 2024 women took home, on average, £631 less per month than men. New research by the Society into the factors behind the gender pay gap show that even if women and men work in the same occupations and industries, had the same working hours, type of work, age, and ethnicity, almost two-thirds of the hourly gender pay gap would still exist.
Workplace discrimination against young women reaches three-year high
More than half of women (52%) of women between the ages of 18 and 30 claimed they were discriminated against at work – a 10% rise in just two years. The research from the Young Women’s Trust, reported in HR magazine, showed an even sharper rise in workplace discrimination for young women from ethnic minorities – up from 44% in 2022 to 61% in 2024. ‘It is troubling to hear that discrimination has reached a three-year high, creating another barrier for the next generation of women in the workplace, at such a crucial point in their careers,’ said Geeta Nargund, chair of gender parity consultancy The Pipeline.
Women’s workplace health still ‘in crisis’
Work-related illness among women faces a worsening crisis and continues to be inadequately addressed, warn employer. The British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS) warned a year ago about a hidden crisis in women’s workplace health. Since then the proportion of women experiencing work-induced illness has continued to grow. Long-term sickness rates for women have reached almost 35%, overtaking men for the first time. An estimated 1.5m women are currently off work because of ill health. The BOHS report found that underreporting of work-related illness among women remains a significant issue.
Driving performance at Rolls-Royce
Inclusion is at the heart of a Rolls-Royce companywide approach to its employees. The Group’s ‘Being Like Me’ on its intranet is a place where employees share their personal experience of everything from coming out to what it is like living with physical differences. According to the company’s head of diversity, inclusion and belonging, the initiative allows people to ‘come to work and not necessarily feel that they have to edit themselves when they walk through the door’. She said the company has done a lot of work to allow people to be ‘open and honest’, which in turn helps to foster inclusion and psychological safety.
How the 1LV WE+ Measure is impacting women in the workplace
Psychological safety is a key element of diversity and inclusion and one of the WE+ Measure Goals. The One Loud Voice WE+ brand is all about Women and Equality and so much more. The three core pillars of work are: WE+ Measure, which is all about best practice metrics; WE+ Engagement, which is about gender partnerships; and WE+ Support which is advisory and coaching. The WE+ Measure allows organisations to measure their gender equity inputs against established best practices that achieve gender equality outputs. It benefits the organisation and the women who work there. It’s game changing. To find out more visit https://www.oneloudvoice.co.uk/benchmark
History footnote…
The Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS) was formed on 29 November 1917, with 3,000 women. At the service’s height in 1944 there were 74,000 women, involved in over 200 different jobs. The Wrens, as they are known, were not integrated into the Royal Navy until 76 years later in 1993.
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