Advertising has an image problem: Apprenticeships will help us boost diversity January 29, 2015 With 98 days to go until the general election, David Cameron has pledged to reduce the annual benefits cap to fund 3m new apprenticeships. Is this what business wants? It is clearly a good thing, economically and socially, to spend less on welfare and to encourage more people into work. To date, however, the creative [...]
Higher expectations are stopping women getting top jobs, not family commitments and motherhood January 15, 2015 The lack of female leaders and top executives in business isn't down to the reason you might think. Research has shown that more women are needed at the top of business, not just on principle, but to make businesses better, and it's motherhood which usually gets the blame as the main reason preventing women from [...]
Which countries have the most women on boards? Norway, France and the United Kingdom January 13, 2015 The number of women on the boards of British companies has transformed from a mere smattering into a solid number in recent years, but how well is the UK doing compared to the rest of the world? Britain came sixth out of 20 in a new international census, which looked at women on the boards [...]
The government is failing to hit gender targets in Whitehall, but which party is the most equal? December 29, 2014 Closing the gender gap at the top of politics is taking time. According to official data, only two government departments met the target of appointing as many women as men last year. In the 2013-14 financial year, less than 40 per cent of new appointments were women. As many as 10 departments performed worse in [...]
Women making up larger slice of high earners December 22, 2014 The number of high-earning women is rising faster than the number of high-earning men. The number of women who are now higher-rate tax payers was 17 per cent greater in the financial year 2013-14 (April to April) than 2012-13, according to official data crunched by Radius Equity. This is quicker growth than in high-earning [...]
Is the OECD right that inequality has significantly curbed economic growth? December 9, 2014 Lord Wood of Anfield, a shadow cabinet minister and adviser to Ed Miliband, says Yes. The OECD report confirms that inequality is not just a social problem, but a serious economic problem. It estimates that, over a 20-year period, high and rising inequality cost Britain almost 9 percentage points of growth, while policies designed to [...]
Thomas Cook’s Harriet Green would like to be fired by herself hears Inspiring Women conference November 20, 2014 Thomas Cook chief executive Harriet Green really wishes she could be a Buddhist. The travel boss, who gets up at 3.30am every morning to start work and laments that Thomas Cook doesn’t have an Asian business so she could hit the phones in the very early hours, believes deeply in Buddhist humanism but just can’t [...]
Flexible working: How it can boost women in work November 20, 2014 Companies underestimate the productivity benefits of the practice. The latest figures show that women are still under-represented in senior leadership positions, with only one in five FTSE 100 directorships and 7 per cent of executive directorships occupied by women. So it’s not surprising that we’ve seen a rise in the number of campaigns looking [...]
Where is the best place in the world to be a woman? UK slips eight places in World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index 2014 as Iceland retains crown November 19, 2014 The gap between the amount women and men are paid has narrowed to 9.4 per cent, its lowest since records began in 1997, according to the World Economic Forum's Gender Gap Index 2014. But that still doesn't mean the UK is setting an example: after giving us Icesave and more volcanic ash cloud than we [...]
More women in boardrooms: How are FTSE-listed companies faring? November 18, 2014 More women than ever before are rising to to the top of FTSE-listed companies but there's still a lot to be done. A report by executive recruiters Norman Broadbent has found that companies are making good progress towards increasing female participation on their boards. This is line with recommendations from Lord Davies of Abersoch's report three [...]