Equality at last – well in Sheffield at least

I have always found it a little rich that the government, and the regulators, when they talk about equal pay seem to target the private sector as the worst offender. On Wednesday 14 September Theresa May, the Home Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities launched the new voluntary approach to improving transparency on pay and other gender equality issues. And who was the scheme aimed at? The private sector and the first to sign up Tesco, BT, National Grid, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and law firm Eversheds.

Yet somehow, this new scheme simply underscores the view that the private sector is the villain. Yet when you read the newspapers you find that the worst offenders, just by the sheer size of their workforce are in fact the local authorities.

The latest in a long line of pay discrimination, and one that is now being settled out of court after considerable expense, is Sheffield Council. The argument advanced by Sheffield Council was simple that men working as street cleaners and gardeners were paid between 33% and 38% more than those for women working in jobs that even they agreed were comparable because that difference was caused by historical productivity bonuses. It was not gender related discrimination – oh no – it was just about productivity – as related to male jobs.

That sounds so convincing.

So sanity prevails and the end of the road for a long running dispute and one that will have an impact on thousands of other local authority workers. But let’s be clear about the lesson. The cause may be rooted in history but the problem was the current Council’s attitude. Yes pay disparity exists but that is why you need to be crystal clear about the reason and why regular pay audits guard against pay discrimination. Local authorities have been carrying out pay audits since the late 1970s and the Equality Standard for Local Government has been around since 2001 all of which cover gender and pay and those didn’t seem to help. So remember it is not the fact that you carry out pay audit that is important, it is about what you do when you discover the discrepancy and for the workers affected that is important because not only were they entitled to equal pay, but that missed pay also affects their pensions. So perhaps it’s time for the government to get it’s own house in order and lead by example.

Oh and by the way…well done Tesco, BT, National Grid, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and law firm Eversheds and all the others for stepping up to the plate and for those private sector equality scheme providers who also cover the issue.

How competent are your staff?

One of the buzzwords always used by HR is competency. Now many people think that is about making sure that employees are properly skilled, that they can actually do the work you want them to. Well it can be, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Competency is about how you want people to behave. It is about personal attributes or what you want them to learn to make them more efficient and perform to a higher level. And those skill sets come in all different shapes and sizes. It can be technical skills that make them operate systems better or it can be attitudes which can make for better customer focus but most centre on the job, not the person.

But how about those core competencies that talks to the person and their behaviour. One of the basics is not to drive your customers away by their attitude but about your employees building your reputation and sales. Pretty obvious really, but so many business just fail to recognise it.

If you look at your own organisation’s competence framework there will be a set of core behaviours and skills, common to all roles in your organisation. They are intended to be the very core of your organisational culture. But how many of them cover the practical application of equality and diversity. It is all very well knowing you have a policy – it is also good to know that discrimination is something you should avoid – but how many staff have actually been told how to apply those policies in practical work situations?.

It’s about how the stuff which gets done in your organisation should be done with an eye on inclusion. It’s about embedding those core skills and a better understanding of how to avoid discrimination within every employee and teaching everyone those essential skills for the future.