Supporting Female Staff
The gender pay gap continues to be a major issue across all industries.
The findings come as the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) urges organisations to take steps to protect their female employees and it also follows CMI’s latest Economic Outlook survey which revealed that the relative advantage in job security female managers had over their male colleagues, in April 2009, has now disappeared.
Ruth Spellman, chief executive of the CMI says; “It is a depressing fact that inequality appears to be endemic within the UK workforce and despite the fact that many of our European counterparts have succeeded in tackling the problem, UK organisations are lagging far behind when it comes to taking care of their female staff. There is no shortage of female talent in the UK, but organisations persist in passing over women when it comes to filling the top spots. The proportion of female directors has risen by less than one per cent in the past 12 months and is only five per cent higher than a decade ago.
It is a depressing fact that inequality appears to be endemic within the UK
workforce.
workforce.
“This is a ridiculous state of affairs. There needs to be a radical shift of attitude in the UK whereby gaps in equal opportunities or pay between men and women are regarded as deeply unfair and utterly unacceptable. We are urging employers to take urgent action to protect their female staff and demonstrate that they are just as valued, and valuable, as their male peers.”
Ruth Spellman’s comments come against a backdrop of figures obtained by the CMI’s recent National Management Salary Survey, showing that at junior level, male pay is increasing at a greater rate than female pay: 5.2% compared with 4.6% respectively - an indication that the gender pay gap is actually increasing.
Joanne Webster, a professor of parasitic diseases at the RVC, has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).
