International Women’s Day 2023: Insight from our Director of People & Culture - Sam Wilkinson

For me, International Women’s Day is a time to celebrate the amazing women in our lives and in the workplace, but it's crucial to remember that supporting women should be a year-round commitment. As a business, it's important to take a step back and evaluate where you stand when it comes to gender equality. 

Here’s a summary of our progress:

Gender split - Leadership roles

Leadership roles (Head of or Director role occupied by employees who identify as female): 48%

We are proud to have strong representation of women in leadership roles. It’s exciting to work with so many talented people in our business every day. This is a testament to the culture we have in our business, and we feel fortunate to work with so many talented individuals every day.

Gender split

Whole company: 38% of our employees identify as female

While our company's gender split has improved from 30% to 38% female employees since 2020, we strive to do better. Our ED&I committee will be analysing our data to suggest initiatives that will help us improve in this area.

Gender pay gap

Although we are not required to report on our gender pay gap, we proactively track it. 

Our gender pay gap is currently 14%, and we have reduced our gender pay gap by over 10% since last year. 

We have identified the reasons why our gap exists, and some of the initiatives to close the gap include:

• Encouraging more women to apply for technical roles through social and community engagement 

• Supporting Women in Tech initiatives and partnering with other organisations such as Tech Returners, InnovateHer etc

• Encouraging and providing development and training to enable progression into leadership roles - this includes hosting relevant talks, e.g. we have a specialist speaker coming in to do a talk on Imposter Syndrome

• Offering work experience, paid internships and placements 

Supporting all working parents

Our focus is not only on supporting women in our workplace but on having great benefits and flexible working arrangements for all employees that will help all families balance childcare needs. 

All parents have access to a workplace nursery scheme that enables them to save money on nursery fees through salary sacrifice. A number of employees also work reduced hours or condensed hours to support their childcare needs outside of work, and like a lot of workplaces now, we have a hybrid work model and flexible start and finish times for all employees. 

My own Learning & Development 

I am going to an event run by a fantastic female leader (I say this first-hand as I used to work in her team a number of years ago) - so thank you Toni Phoenix-Coles for organising a Women in Business meet-up that focuses on Lessons in Life & Leadership - I'm looking forward to it!

Overall, International Women’s Day is an important reminder to celebrate women's achievements and continue to work towards a more equitable future. As a business, it's vital to make gender equality a priority and take action to support and uplift all employees, regardless of their gender.