Women have finally caught up with men in one aspect of management – they are just as likely to face redundancy as their male colleagues.

A study by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) reveals that losing a job is the one area where men and women compete equally in the workplace.

The findings showed 2.2 per cent of men and women executives lost the jobs in the 12 months to February 2011.

The statistics marked a change, because in the previous year 4.5 per cent of women were made redundant compared with three per cent of men.

Rising up the ranks, senior women managers are more likely to get fired than men – 4.9 per cent of female function heads were sacked against 2.7 per cent of men, while 2.9 per cent of women directors lost their jobs compared with 0.6 per cent of men.

The survey of around 34,000 executives also revealed pay is still an issue for women managers.

While female junior executives are earning as much or slightly more pay than men for the first time,   an average salary of £21,969 – £602 more than men.

But it’s business as usual for more senior managers as men are paid an average £42,441, while women earn £31,985 for doing the same job, a discrepancy of £10,546.

The CMI’s director of policy and research, Petra Wilton, said: “While the CMI is delighted junior female executives have caught up with males at the same level, this year’s salary survey demonstrates yet again, that businesses are contributing to the persistent gender pay gap and alienating top female employees by continuing to pay men and women unequally.

“It is the responsibility of every executive,  organisation and the government to bring about change. Diversity shouldn’t be seen as something that has to be accommodated, but something to celebrate. Imposing mandatory quotas and forcing organisations to reveal salaries is not the solution.”

To illustrate the point, the CMI has calculated if the gender pay gap continues to close at the current rate, women’s salaries will not equal men’s pay until 2109 – 98 years time.

Download free toolkits and resources to help female staff challenge inequality in the workplaces

This article is filed under : Women, Social Policy, Diversity, Legal, Leadership, Minorities, Role models

What is diversity? See http://www.diversityleaders.org/our-services/what-is-diversity

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For more content Diversity Leaders Magazine http://paper.li/diversitylead/1308375628 Key topics : Leadership, Discrimination, Diversity

Leadership Voice Magazine

A think-tank is calling for the abolition of the Equality and Human Rights Commission as ‘contributing very little to meaningful equality’.

The stinging rebuke claims scrapping the EHRC would save the government millions at no obvious cost to the public.

The education charity Civitas –  also known as the Institute for the Study of Civil Society – calls for the change in a new report, Small Corroding Words, by Jon Gower Davies, former head of religious studies at the University of Newcastle.

Civitas describes the report as a ‘systematic critique of the philosophy, research and practice of the EHRC’.

“It reveals serious flaws in the EHRC’s review How Fair Is Britain?, that was used to demonstrate unfairness in Britain,” said the report.

“What the research shows are the statistical differences between some groups. This line of thinking entails, for example, taking the fact that men are more likely to die in work-related accidents than women as a sign of unfairness. The EHRC inaccurately blames Britain for differences of this kind.”

The report goes on to build on the contention that the idea of unfairness and diversity is really an incorrect interpretation of data.

“The EHRC review details a vast range of statistical differences between social groups in Britain. However, it makes little attempt to establish what, if anything, is responsible for these differences.

“Instead, when the differences appear to disadvantage some groups, it is assumed to be the result of Britain’s unfairness. Davies reveals the myopia of this position that has to assume away environmental differences between, for example, countries of origin, variations over which British policy has no control,” said the report.

The report concludes that discrimination and unfairness are blamed for results that are often beyond control of anyone in Britain.

“Any action, on this account, could be condemned as unfair. This narrow approach to social policy is neither a reasonable approach with which to judge British society, nor a useful way of developing policies to improve outcomes for minority communities,” said the report.

This article  is filed under : Social Policy, Diversity, Legal, Leadership, Minorities, Role models

Britain’s boardrooms are bastions of business dominated by men despite years of campaigning and legislation to throw open their doors to women.

Equality champions reckon that 5,400 women should walk the corridors of power at the headquarters of the country’s top companies – but most are conspicuous by their absence amid the 26,000 strong throng of male directors.

Considering the rate of current progress, the Equality and Human Rights Commission estimates parity between the sexes at the helm of industry will take another 70 years.

Sex & Power 2011, a report from the commission, revealed little has changed in public or private sector boardrooms since 2008.

Although more women are graduating with better degrees than men, few are gaining management posts as men, despite being in similar jobs during their twenties.

Source: Sex & power 2011 Equality & Human rights Commission

Commissioner Kay Carberry said: “The gender balance at the top has not changed much in three years, despite there being more women graduating from university and occupying middle management roles. We had hoped to see an increase in the number of women in positions of power, however this isn’t happening.

“Many women disappear from the paid workforce after they have children, so employers lose their skills. Others become stuck in positions below senior management, leaving many feeling frustrated and unfulfilled.  Consequently, the higher ranks of power in many organisations are still dominated by men.

“If Britain is to stage a strong recovery from its current economic situation, then we have to make sure we’re not wasting women’s skills and talents.”

The report notes that women are ‘flooding’ well-paid jobs that demand good qualifications, like the law, accountancy and medicine, but are failing to break through to executive roles from senior management posts.

“Progress for women has been tortuously slow,” said the report. “While women make progress in some sectors, that progress stalls or reverses in other sectors. It is a trend of waxing and waning, not upward movement.”

Download a copy [LINK: http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/key-projects/sexandpower/]

This article  is filed under: Women Boardroom Discrimination, Diversity, Legal, Leadership, Minorities, Role models

Record numbers of employers plan to give jobs to workers from overseas despite the government’s immigration cap, new research has revealed.

One in four organisations plan to take on migrant staff in the next three months, says the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

The number is the highest level the research has recorded and up from 22% in the last quarter.

A massive 60% of employers cite a lack of job-specific skills in the UK as the main reason for looking overseas for job candidates.

Employers are bypassing the government’s immigration cap and cutting costs by taking ready-qualified workers from the European Union rather than investing in up-skilling UK workers.

“The anomaly is we have persistently high unemployment, but the number of employers reporting recruitment difficulties remains high,” said a CIPD spokesman.

“This is because we have a highly skilled economy, with new skilled jobs coming on stream while low skilled jobs are decreasing or being farmed off to China and South Asia. The supply of highly skilled workers is simply not meeting the demand and we need overseas workers to fill the gap – in areas such as engineering, IT, and even in the public sector where we have a shortage of doctors and nurses and other key positions.”

Diversity leaders are presented with an extra challenge as job roles go through this transition.

Not only are the issues of current staff feeling disgruntled as they consider themselves overlooked for promotion and training still evident in the work force, but the problems are exacerbated by the arrival of better qualified and better paid individuals from overseas.

High unemployment is some of the more debt-ravaged Eurozone economies like Ireland, Spain, Italy and Greece are also adding more highly-skilled workers to the pool of available staff.

The result is 75% of employers are not looking to up-skill staff, 82% are not recruiting more UK graduates and 8% will offshore more jobs.

The government cap is aimed at pushing immigration under 100,000 a year.

This article  is filed under :Immigration, Diversity, Legal, Leadership, Minorities, Role models

The government as too sloppy about protecting personal data and current privacy laws are ‘deeply flawed’, according to a new report.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) claims privacy law is too fragmented, fails to stop personal data privacy breaches and does not keep pace with the growth in personal data collection.

The report points out that tracking who holds personal data is almost impossible as information is swapped between government agencies and no laws regulate photographic or CCTV surveillance.

The concern is this lack of data control leads to multiple breaches of personal data privacy as no one has overall responsibility for what information is held, how it is collected, what happens when it is lost and whether the law allows data to pass between agencies without permission.

To streamline the law for the state and others to reform how information about people is collected, used and stored, the EHRC has recommended a three-point plan for government to follow to improve personal data protection:

• Streamline information privacy laws so organisations can better understand their responsibilities and to let citizens know and use their rights.

• Make organisations justify why they need to hold personal data.

• Public bodies should consider the impact on information privacy of any new policy or practice and ensure any requests they make for personal data are justified and proportionate.

Geraldine Van Bueren, a commissioner at the Equality and Human Rights Commission said: “It’s important that the government and its agencies have the information they need about us to do their job, for example to fight crime, or protect our health. However, the state is holding increasing amounts of information about our lives without us knowing, being able to check that it’s accurate or being able to challenge this effectively.

“This needs to change so that any need for personal information has to be clearly justified by the organisation that wants it. The law and regulatory framework needs to be simplified and in the meantime public authorities need to check what data they have and that it complies with the existing laws.”

This article  is filed under: Discrimination, Diversity, Legal, Leadership, Minorities, Role models

A Birmingham employment tribunal has heard what is believed to be the first British case relating to the Indian caste system.

Although caste discrimination is believed to be rife in the UK’s Hindu community, this case is considered the first public complaint  – and the vanguard of other complaints in a campaign to include prejudice about caste in the definition of racism.

The tribunal heard Vijay and Amerdeep Begraj claimed they were harassed then sacked by solicitors Heer Manak in Coventry because their employer disagreed with their inter-caste marriage.

Heer Manak denied the allegations.

Almost like a modern-day ‘Romeo and Juliet’, Vijay, 32, a Hindu Jat met Amardeep, 33, a Sikh belonging to a higher caste while working for the solicitors.

They fell in love and married, facing objections from their employers – Amerdeep claims she was warned off the romance and warned marrying Vijay would lead to ‘potential problems’.

“I was told to reconsider the step I was taking of marrying Vijay because he was a different caste. People of Vijay’s caste were different creatures. Marriage would be very different from dating,” she told the tribunal.

Nevertheless she went ahead with the marriage only to find her workload increasing while other solicitors were paid more for doing less.

She decided to resign after her husband was sacked after seven year’s service.

The tribunal reserved judgement. Mr Begraj is claiming wrongful dismissal and his wife is claiming unfair constructive dismissal, both on the grounds of religion and race.

Caste is an Indian class system based on race and religion that determines social relationships between families and individuals. The ‘untouchables’ are at the base of the caste system.

Consultation is ongoing to decide whether to include caste as a form of discrimination in the Equality Act.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has stated that they feel caste is already covered under the act – but this test case should clarify the position.

This article  is filed under: Discrimination, Diversity, Legal, Leadership, Minorities, Role models

Age diversity promotes ill-will between workers in organisations that leads to an unhappy workplace and less productivity, according to a new academic study.

Whereas the conventional diversity management view is that a mix of ages in the workplace is desirable, the new research claims the opposite is true and that same-age workplaces give better results.

Around 8,000 employees at 62 organisations were asked their opinions about age diversity – and the responses were not really what their employers expected or wanted to hear.

The survey revealed age diversity fostered bad feelings climate in the workplace, which led to poor productivity and a high turnover of staff.

Many older workers expressed dissatisfaction when younger employees were promoted over them, while younger workers were frustrated at having to wait to fill ‘dead men’s shoes’ as older colleagues failed to move on.

“The problems associated with increasing age diversity are unlikely to solve themselves,” said Florian Kunze of the University of St Gallen, Switzerland, who carried out the study with Jochen Menges of Cambridge University. “They need to receive the same level of attention that is devoted to ethnic diversity or gender diversity, and, unfortunately, that is probably not occurring today in most organisations.”

The results were presented to the annual meeting of the Academy of management at San Antonio, Texas.

Kunze and Menges told the meeting: “In age-diverse companies, employees experience more anger, fear, and disgust, and therefore they consider more often changing their jobs and contribute less to the performance of the company as a whole.

“Higher age diversity leads to poorer organisational outcomes, because of its negative influence on the company’s affective climate. The benefits of differing expertise, experience and perspectives typically associated with diversity are not likely to unfold. The exuberant expression of emotions in upbeat organisations may work for same-age people, but it does not resonate well in age-diverse organisations.”

This article  is filed under: Discrimination, Diversity, Legal, Leadership, Minorities, Role models

A council that replaced staff with machines to collect council tax payments to save costs is now making staff available to help the disabled after complaints about discrimination.

The money-go-round started with Wyre Forest District Council replacing staff with machines to save money.

The £13,000 machines let residents in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, pay council tax and save £25,000 a year in staff costs.

Disabled taxpayers are complaining they cannot use the machines because they are at the wrong height for wheelchair users.

To resolve the problem, the council is now making customer service staff available to help people with difficulties in using the machines.

Mark Lawley, of Disability Action Wyre Forest (DAWF), has complained that he cannot see the machine properly and people queuing behind him can see personal data on the screen.

“The council has not thought this through and these machines are discriminating against the disabled,” he said.

“Under access to services rules in the Equality Act 2010, the self-service machines fail because wheelchair users can’t use them. A lot of people like me are upset because the council clearly has not considered our needs and just must the changes on financial grounds.”

The council said: “The kiosks have been installed as an initiative for the council to save money.

“We are aware that there are issues for people with disabilities and we are working to address them by providing alternative ways for people to pay and having customer service advisers on hand to help people who may have specific difficulties.”

Under the Equality Act, a disabled person suffering indirect discrimination, like a business setting up a telephone help line that excludes the deaf, can be awarded compensation.

This article is filed under: Discrimination, Diversity, Legal, Leadership, Minorities, Role models What is diversity? See http://www.diversityleaders.org/our-services/what-is-diversity

Do you want more than what Equality Training or Diversity Training Courses can deliver? See Diversity at Work in the workplace http://www.diversityleaders.org/our-services/training-a-events

For more content Diversity Leaders Magazine http://paper.li/diversitylead/1308375628 Key topics : Leadership, Discrimination, Diversity

A gipsy family is challenging eviction laws on human rights grounds after being thrown off a traveller’s site by other gipsies.

The Buckland family is moving their legal battle to Europe after exhuasting courts and appeals procedures in the UK.

The family were tossed off the Cae Girw gipsy camp ion Port Talbot, South Wales in 2006 after persistent antisocial behaviour that included a reign of terror over managers and 27 other families on the site that included threats with a gun.

Maria Buckland, 52, claims the Gipsy Council discriminated against her and her family and that the eviction prevented them from exercising their human right to live their own ‘family life’ without interference.

The Buckland’s have lost a string of court cases to prove their point – all funded at the taxpayer’s expense.

The Gipsy Council reckons to have spent around £40,000 fighting the case in court.

The European court action is under section 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights which guarantees a right to family life and bans discrimination.

Courts in the UK have heard that  the Buckland family were part of a “culture of disrespect” and Mrs Buckland was “personally guilty of conduct amounting to a nuisance”.

Hughie Smith, president of the Gipsy Council, said: “It was a really bad family. They had no respect for anyone. You can’t have people running amok on a publicly-owned site and making life a misery for other tenants.

“We were concerned, as a gipsy organisation, about having to take action against people claiming to be gipsies, but we were left with no choice.

“We gave these people every opportunity to behave themselves for eight or nine months but they carried on doing their own thing. We issued them with them notice to quit, and although there’s 27 other families on that site no one would sign a complaint against the Bucklands because they were frightened of recriminations.”

is article  is filed under: Discrimination, Diversity, Legal, Leadership, Minorities, Role models

This article is filed under: Discrimination, Diversity, Legal, Leadership, Minorities, Role models

The world may have uttered a gasp when superhero Peter Parker breathed his last as Spider-Man – but many diehard fans may have to gasp again with the shock of his resurrection.

The new Spider-Man is revealed as Miles Morales, a half-black, half-Latino teenager in the latest Ultimate Comics Fallout #4 that has just hit the streets.

Miles represents a major shift in the fantasy world of costumed superheroes – a non-white hero with a 21st century grounding.

Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Axel Alonso promised readers a more ethnically diverse comic landscape when he took over at that fabled bastion of crime and punishment that publishes Captain America. the X-Men and Iron Man.

“When the opportunity arose to create a new Spider-Man, we knew it had to be a character that represents the diversity — in background and experience — of the twenty-first century,” Alonso says announcing his new hero.

“Miles is a character who not only follows in the tradition of relatable characters like Peter Parker, but also shows why he’s a new, unique kind of Spider-Man — and worthy of that name.”

“The superhero genre has been dominated by caucasian superheroes from Superman to Batman. When Spider-Man peels back that mask, there will be a whole new demographic kids who we’ll be reaching on a new spiritual level.”

In his first adventure Miles Morales defeats the Kangeroo, then climbing high on a skyscraper, he unmasks for the first time to reveal who he is.

“Going into this we knew we wanted to make a statement about the 21st century. I’m mixed race. My mom is from England, my dad is from Mexico,” said Alonso.

“I remember what it was like to grow up mixed race. This is more prevalent in the United States and it speaks to our rich cultural heritage.”

Artist Sara Pichelli, who draws the new Spider-Man, said: “Maybe sooner or later a black or gay, or both, hero will be considered something absolutely normal.”