In March 2022, we successfully renewed our Athena Swan Silver award, recognising and celebrating the significant record of activity and achievement by the institution in promoting gender equality and addressing challenges across different disciplines. We want to make sure that the skills and capabilities of the entire workforce are recognised and nurtured. This is about levelling the playing field so that everyone can succeed on merit.
We know more work is required and we’re encouraged by the positive progress we’ve made so far. The past year proved to be busy with activity, with progress on delivering actions from our five-year action plan and continuously reviewing the impact of completed actions in years to come. Some of those actions include:
- In October 2022 we signed the Menopause Workplace Pledge to further foster an age- and gender- inclusive workplace. The working group has developed an action plan for the next 12 months, which includes adding menopause as an absence reason on MyHR, running Safe Listening Spaces and delivering a programme of staff awareness sessions and line manager training from October 2022.
- As part of our commitment to ensure equal opportunities and support for all staff to advance their careers, we have developed several initiatives and a targeted women’s development programme. We have invested £100k running the Springboard Women’s Development Programme since 2012/13 and 33% of participants were promoted. Feedback was generally positive, however, uptake has waned and following focus group feedback we are piloting a new programme, Rise. The programme will support women to explore and understand their career development options and improve representation and visibility of women in leadership roles.
- Our Super Recruiter project has resulted in over 180 trained staff to support inclusive recruitment activities. The Super Recruiters support, influence and promote inclusive recruitment practice throughout the recruitment process, strengthening the opportunities to evaluate highly qualified, and often diverse, candidates. As part of the Super Recruiter project we have embedded a gender decoder to e-recruit, to target higher application rates from women. Making sure language in job descriptions and adverts is gender-neutral can make the advert more appealing to a wider talent pool. Since the introduction of the decoder, some departments such as iSolutions have seen a 40% increase in application rates from women, ensuring that we attract and hire from a diverse pool of candidates.
Why are these changes important?
Menopause Workplace Pledge:
The number of those who will experience menopause whilst in employment is increasing, and those in this age group are highly skilled, experienced, and are often role models for younger workers. Menopause can have a big impact on the daily lives of employees and a recent survey has found that many of those who experience menopausal symptoms have cut back on hours, foregone promotions or resigned. We have established a working group dedicated to raising awareness and creating a positive environment for those experiencing menopausal symptoms. Find out more on the dedicated Menopause page.
Gender decoder:
Gendered language and criteria in job descriptions have been shown to attract men/women more: Criteria like ‘competitiveness’, ‘assertiveness’ or ‘driven’ are all words which are more appealing to men (or those who identify with masculinity). That is not to say that women or some trans/non-binary people are not these things, but research shows they are less likely to describe themselves in this stereotypical masculine language.
Learn more:
- Visit our Athena Swan Charter page which includes a high-level summary pack of our Athena Swan Institutional submission as well as a high-level summary pack.
- Watch our webinar: Creating a Level Playing Field in which Diana Eccles, Athena Swan sponsor and Andrew Gameson, Head of Reward, shared the data headlines from our Athena Swan self-assessment and how we are using the Athena Swan Charter as a vehicle to promote gender equality and inclusion at the University.
