Tag Archives: equality

International Women's Day, News

Hootsuite celebrates International Women’s Day with World Woman Hour

#myLEADhER campaign honours 60 women in 60 minutes who are fighting inequality and breaking stereotypes for women in their industries

 Today on International Women’s Day, Hootsuite will power the second annual World Woman Hour, a global digital celebration dedicated to highlighting inspirational stories of women from all walks of life.

Led by the World Woman Foundation, the socially-enabled movement aims to mentor one million women by 2030 and will feature inspiring stories from 60 women, told in 60 seconds — presented together in a powerful 60 minutes of film. The hour will inform viewers about how women, every hour, lack access to healthcare, education, sanitation, energy, equal pay, and its impact on gender inequalities worldwide. 

According to UN Women, every hour, members of national parliaments or legislatures are making decisions on important issues, and only 25% of all national parliamentarians are women. The World Woman Hour honourees will share perspectives to lead the new era of a sustainable, peaceful, healthier, and equitable world for women and girls around the world.


“The goal is to harness digital platforms to engage and empower one million women and girls by 2030 with wisdom, advice, confidence boosters and lessons to follow their dreams and ambitions,” said Rupa Dash, Co-founder & CEO, World Woman Foundation. “We are so excited to be able to use social media for good, and share 60 hero stories of women to drive awareness of women’s and girls’ critical issues globally.”  

Despite progress in recent years, there is still much work to be done in addressing obstacles, disparities and gender gaps that women continue to tackle. According to Hootsuite’s Digital 2022 report, men account for nearly 54% of global social media users, while women account for 36%.


“We are thrilled to be a strategic partner for #WorldWomanHour for the second year running,” said Eva Taylor, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility at Hootsuite. “We continue to see disparity and inequality for women at a global scale, and we know that the gender gap has further widened due to the pandemic. This makes collaborative initiatives such as World Woman Hour more important and impactful than ever before, in order to help drive positive social change and champion the power of human connection to create a global movement that addresses such a critical issue.” 

The event will bring together a group of inspirational women from across the globe who are challenging the status quo and disrupting their industries. A few notable speakers include:

  • Lauren Ridloff, Tony-nominated actress, Marvel Cinematic Universe Superhero
  • Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO of Sustainable Energy for All, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General & Co-Chair of UN-Energy
  • Ashlan Gorse Cousteau, Journalist, explorer, ocean advocate & author
  • Brooke Baldwin, Award-winning journalist, thought leader
  • Leyna Bloom, Model, activist & actor
  • Shohreh Aghdashloo, Emmy winner, Oscar-nominated actress
  • Tegan and Sara Quin, Canadian indie-pop duo
  • Hannah Marcina Bronfman, Advocate, author, founder of HBFIT & investor
  • Maya Higa, Founder of Alveus Sanctuary
  • Christina Koch, Engineer & NASA astronaut

These women have fought against stereotypes and persevered through personal and professional challenges to achieve ideas that are changing the world. The event will premiere on Facebook Live and on the World Woman Foundation YouTube channel on March 8, starting at 1pm EST/10am PST.

For the latest additional news and information, visit  www.worldwomanhour.com. Follow World Woman Hour on Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook to see more and share your hero using the #myLEADhER hashtag. 

News

Aegon UK formally accredited as a Living Wage employer

Aegon has informally adopted the real Living Wage with its workforce for many years but the official accreditation enables Aegon to now go beyond the commitment to its workforce and extend the positive impact to its supply chains. Now, as well as requiring in-scope suppliers of regularly contracted staff to pay the real Living Wage, Aegon is encouraging all of its UK suppliers to adopt the real Living Wage and its non-UK suppliers to identify and adopt an ethical pay standard.

The real Living Wage commitment formalises the fact that everyone working at Aegon receives a minimum hourly wage of at least £9.50 in the UK or £10.85 in London. Both rates are significantly higher than the government minimum for over 23s, which currently stands at £8.91 per hour.

In Scotland, more than 15% of all jobs pay less than the real Living Wage – around 350,000 jobs. Despite this, Aegon has committed to pay the real Living Wage and deliver a fair day’s pay for a hard day’s work.

The real Living Wage is the only UK wage rate calculated according to the costs of living. This recognition means that Aegon is choosing to pay the real Living Wage on a voluntary basis, recognising the value of their workers and ensuring that a hard day’s work receives a fair day’s pay.

Mike Holliday-Williams, CEO at Aegon said: “Aegon is delighted to be recognised as a Living Wage Employer. People are at the heart of the business and make Aegon a great place to work.

“We have been committed to paying all employees the real Living Wage rates informally for many years now. But with this formal accreditation, we will now be able to work with third parties to encourage them to do so as well to ensure more people have a fair and equitable future.”

Richard Lochhead, Minister for Just Transition, Employment and Fair Work says:

“It is fantastic to see Aegon UK become formally accredited as a real Living Wage employer. Ensuring staff are fairly remunerated is fundamental to Fair Work and benefits individual workers as well as business – by improving retention and productivity, and reducing recruitment costs. The Scottish Government encourages all employers regardless of size or sector to pay the real Living Wage.

“I congratulate Aegon UK in making this public commitment to Fair Work and I encourage all employers to follow their lead.”

Peter Kelly, Director of The Poverty Alliance said: “Too many workers in Scotland are in the grip of poverty and employers choosing to pay at least the real Living Wage can loosen that grip. Payment of the real Living Wage allows those in work to become more included in society, better meet their everyday needs, and feel that their value and hard work is recognised by their employer. Congratulations to Aegon on their Living Wage commitment, and I hope more organisations follow their lead by becoming Living Wage accredited.”

Lynn Anderson, Living Wage Scotland Manager said: “Aegon joins a growing movement of over 2,000 employers in Scotland who together want to ensure workers earn a wage that meets the cost of living.

“Having paid their own employees the real Living Wage for a long time, the formal process of accreditation meant that Aegon were able broaden their impact by extending the Living Wage commitment to regular workers employed through their supply chain. We hope Aegon’s Living Wage accreditation will inspire similar action from other large employers, to recognise the important leadership and influencing role they too could have in growing the Living Wage movement.

“Our Living Wage employer network includes lots of smaller employers as well as other iconic brands like SSE, Standard Life Aberdeen, Barrs, & D.C. Thomson.”

Since 2011 the Living Wage movement has delivered a pay rise to more than 45,000 people in Scotland and put more than £240 million extra into the pockets of low paid Scottish workers.

News

Lead by example: Demand for ‘Inclusive Leadership’ coaching increases

Demand for ‘inclusive leadership’ coaching have increased, with 27% of executives citing it as an area for improvement

Inclusive leadership is climbing the business agenda and is now the most requested management coaching topic, according to the latest feedback figures from Talking Talent, a specialist coaching consultancy. While more than a quarter (27%) of business executives have requested more coaching on being an ‘inclusive leader’ there is still significant strides to be made to tackle diversity, equity, and inclusion issues within business.

Creating a truly inclusive workforce is one of the greatest challenges for leaders, and research from Gartner indicates that only 40% of employees agree that their manager fosters an inclusive environment. The behaviours shown by those at the top of a business filter through to the rest of the organisation, so it is essential that leaders give diversity, equity and inclusion due attention.

Chris Parke, CEO at Talking Talent, says, “Recognising and embracing employee differences continues to be a challenge within organisations. Not because people are negative or consciously biased, but because they are operating within their own cultural norms and are not necessarily aware that their own inherent thinking and perspectives influence their actions in ways that could be seen as exclusive. Those who have requested inclusive leadership coaching have taken an essential step, examined the state of inclusion around them and identified a problem, which is, of course, the first step in ‘solving’ the problem.”

Following the monumental events of 2020, where diversity, equity, and inclusion was cemented as a board level agenda item, Google searches for guidance on ‘inclusive leadership’ peaked throughout the year. Search queries of ‘diversity in business’ were up a huge 170% and demonstrates how pressing the need for coaching is. Inclusive leadership coaching aims to explore unique challenges for each business so that holistic and realistic solutions can be applied and will then affect the whole workforce.

Parke, adds, “Attitudes towards leadership are slowly evolving and 20 years ago it would have been a struggle to convince leaders to undergo this type of coaching. For me, looking inward and identifying areas for improvement is the mark of a true leader. While there is still a lot of progress to be made, it is encouraging that inclusive behaviours are now more essential within leadership.”

Inclusive leadership coaching has been conducting with a range of Talking Talent clients, after the sessions, a spokesperson from Mondi said, “I can implement these new leadership techniques in my own meetings, and I know how to be less passively inclusive. I also know to work on my own self-awareness and actively ask for feedback.”

A spokesperson from Siemens added, “The inclusive leadership awareness session left us with a lot of insights and thought-provoking moments. Further, it has strengthened our resolve to (a) reflect more intensively upon our actions (b) role model the desired behaviours and (c) keep moving forward with our aspiration of not just accepting & valuing inclusion but also actively combating exclusion.”

The ongoing effects of lockdown and events of 2020 highlighted the need for diversity, equity, and inclusion in business more than ever before. Terms such as ‘allyship’ and ‘unconscious bias’ were entering discussions in and out of the boardroom. Allyship in particular was a breakout query, with Google searches of ‘allyship meaning’ increasing by more than 5000%. Some organisations rushed to support causes, and with little inside understanding, the statements backfired. Being an inclusive workplace means being representative of the wider population which can reduce the risk of inaccurately representing experiences.

Parke concludes, “The water-cooler, or rather the video call catchup, moments of 2020 were about issues way beyond television and the weather. Instead, many were looking at our own behaviours and how they may impact those around us. From there we also looked at our places of work and the part leaders have to play in creating a place where people can openly call out exclusive behaviours and everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed. Conscious inclusion is about developing your culture through purposeful and intentional actions to support and uplift others, acting consciously and conscientiously to create real and lasting change, naturally this type of workplace is spearheaded by an inclusive leader.”

 

News

International companies hire more women

Globalisation provides opportunities for gender equality in employment, according to new research by Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU).
The study, conducted by WU’s researchers Alyssa Schneebaum and Carolina Lennon, found that there is a correlation between global economic interaction and the gender distribution among a firm’s employees.

Firms that export or are owned by parent companies abroad have a higher female share of full-time, permanent employees than firms that are only active in their national markets.
This was especially apparent for exporters with customers in countries with equal gender norms – these companies employed six to seven percentage points more female employees.

“What we see here is a ‘race to the top,’ meaning that global firms adopt more equal hiring practices compared to non-global firms if they interact commercially with more gender-equal economies. There seems to be no evidence of a race to the bottom, that is, gender inequality isn’t imported through commercial links with gender-unequal countries,” says Professor Schneebaum.

However, the percentage of women only increases at the lower and middle levels of the organisation – exposure to gender equal norms has no effect on top management positions.
Being internationally oriented has a negative effect on the probability of a firm having a female in top management positions with exporters 3.9 per cent less likely to have a female in charge.

“These results are important because they show how commercial trade serves as a medium through which gender norms can be transmitted across countries. However, we do find that for more prestigious jobs, it will take more than just commercially-base exposure to norms of equality to get more women into management positions,” says Professor Schneebaum.

The study analysed data administered by the Enterprise Analysis Unit of the World Bank from 2006 to 2014, on 30,000 firms in more than 100 developing and emerging economies.