Government department seeking ‘gender parity at every level’
The Home Office is renewing its focus on gender diversity at senior level after government cuts reduced the number of female leaders, the CIPD’s annual conference heard yesterday.
Recent austerity measures had seen an unexpected take-up of voluntary redundancy among women working in the government department, explained Julie Taylor, its strategic lead for talent and capability.
“We lost a lot of women at that stage,” she said. As a result, the proportion of women in executive grades dipped from a peak of 39 per cent in June 2012 to 33 per cent in March 2013, and was forecast to fall to 28 per cent by 2016.
The figures sparked a review of talent management and career planning, which found that female staff had a “self perception” of impediments to their progression.
“They were seeing unconscious bias in the recruitment process – that it was looking for behaviours that were a barrier to women,” Taylor told delegates.
As a result, a three-point plan was developed to make the Home Office a more inclusive environment for women. This involved identifying top female talent, better career planning through sponsorship and visible role modelling, and giving all recruiters unconscious bias training.
The number of women in the three executive grades was already back up to 34 per cent, with a target of 38 per cent, said Taylor, adding that the “ambition is gender parity at every level”.
Sharing the conference platform with Taylor was Sarah Churchman, the lead for diversity and inclusion and employee wellbeing at PwC.
The professional services firm has also introduced a sponsorship programme for female partners, after the appointment of an all-male board in 2009 stunned the workforce.
“It was shocking for our people because of our focus on diversity,” Churchman said.
Currently, 130 out of 850 – or 16 per cent – of partners in the UK are women – up from 8 per cent in 2005, and with a goal of reaching 20 per cent by 2018.
PwC’s programme to bring more women into the most senior roles of the firm saw 26 of the most talented partners selected for sponsorship by a board member.
Three years on, 90 per cent of these partners had seen a role level increase, compared to 50 per cent in the overall partner group, said Churchman.
It was also important for these women to heighten their profile in the firm and act as role models for more junior staff, who see could female partners leading on globally important projects, she added.
The success of the scheme in improving succession planning and talent management has meant that it will be rolled out to other parts of the business.
Partners will sponsor female and ethnic minority managers “to ensure the pipeline grows and more diverse people come through to senior roles,” Churchman said.
But she also told the audience that planning strategies around diversity was “a balancing act” for organisations.
“An over focus on gender can be upsetting for men and other groups,” she explained. “So our focus talks about inclusion, and how it’s good for business to bring in different skill sets.”