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It'll be a brave man who offers any comment beyond 'the party line'.
There is no debate, non-adherent views are, of course, stifled.
Sorry, just a quick question - when is the International Men's Day?
I am a great believer in equality so there must be a Men's day as well.
I would be grateful if Richard could let me know.
Sorry, just a quick question - when is the International Men's Day?
I am a great believer in equality so there must be a Men's day as well.
I would be grateful if Richard could let me know.
Depending on who you ask:
"Every day is International Men's Day!"
or
"14 March"
What a great assignment Richard! Can I volunteer for this assignment next year?
I'm not a brave man but I do believe in reality checks. You have "womenly" women and "manly" men. Then you get all the grades inbetween culminating with men that want to be women and women that want to be men. All these entities think and work differently. So nothing in the workplace can be equal. What needs to be looked at is our social lack of values and mamby pamby outlook on too many important issues. This strive for artificially making up the numbers with ethnic, racial and sexual percentages will not work.
Highlighting the difference between different groups in society (as the many "representative" groups do) simply highlights the differences. When people see differences, that's when they start to discriminate based on those differences.
Make the differences invisible, and discrimination for any reason stops.
I know what you mean but that simply doesn't work. You cannot MAKE the differences invisible. They are there and need to be dealt with. Like the difference in people, peoples attitudes are different. You have "extreme prejudice" to "anything goes" and then, of course, everything in between. My view has always been. Leave things alone and they always find a healthy balance. Start messing around and you'll end up with what we've got now. Striving for a perfect society has to be commended, however you won't get there by force.
Richard - thank you.
I am now going to mark that in my diary and shortly thereafter I look forward to reading your article on how it went.
I did look back but couldn't find your article in November 2018. Could you point me in the right direction please.
Don't take it to heart, Richard - he is bitter and twisted over the loan charge and lashing out.
Are there lots of men getting pregnant suffering from discrimination then?
Oh, hello Ann. Haven't had you trolling me recently. "Lashing out" is a bit of an exaggeration don't you think? I merely asked Richard to demonstrate that he is in favour of equality by reporting on both women's and men's events. If he doesn't then he is obviously a member of the PC brigade and eminently qualified to be employed by the BBC.
Ah gender pay gap reporting. A company I do some consulting for asked me to do their report last year.
They employ about 1000 staff and there was actually 2 women more than men employed so when reported the split was basically 50/50. Also about 80% of the staff are are paid around NLW or thereabouts. They also have one pay scale. So mean/medians etc were the same for both men and women. There was actually more women in senior roles than men and also the female managers were hitting more of the bonuses than the men so the report showed a positive gender pay gap for bonus side of things.
After checking the numbers this was filed, only to receive an email back stating that my results were statistically unlikely?
I replied that whilst they may be statistically unlikely, they were not impossible and explained that as 50% of the population was female that my results surely would be the most likely outcome. I also explained that as 80% of the workforce were paid around NLW that the mean and median would produce a figure close to the NLW.
He rang back (clearly drunk on his new found Hitler like powers) stating that if I did provide all of my workings that he would "name and shame me" in the press.
"Name and Shame us" for what exactly? paying everyone the same and having a team of female managers who were earning more bonuses than the men.
Not really going to ruin our reputation is it.
He was really obnoxious and I would be keen to know where a civil servant feels he has the power to try and destroy the reputation of a company at his own free will, based on predetermined statistics.
Anyway I sent him my spreadsheet with it all on, and asked once he checked it to send an apology and a draft press release showing the company was actually Gender Pay Gap positive.
He simply replied stating that figures were now accepted.
Deduce from that what you will but I suspect that probably 90% of businesses produced figures which were as they should be and nothing sensational in them, but the GPG people are looking for examples to "name and shame" to justify their own existence. The method of reporting is flawed and the numbers you report are pretty meaningless. Despite giving the opportunity to report something good, they did not, which should show what their true agenda is.
The reality is that talent rises to the top, its nonsense that a woman would be held back if she was good enough for the big chair.
These arguments that are running are 40 years out of date. I also find these women only groups to be pretty poor. I saw something on LInkedin where someone was trying to set up a "Women in accounting group"
Why would anyone want to join such a group. As a peer group it is excluding half the profession so by definition, it must be for people who cannot heck it in a mixed group, and will be sadly lacking balance in anything useful.
Successful people get on and do it, what they don't do is bleat on about hard life is.
If I was a young kid starting out and found my CV rejected from a firm of yummy mummies on account I was a boy, without looking at my qualifications I would be pretty miffed. I would also find a girl only firm a bit weird like something off Stepford wives.
My network group has recently had an influx of female members from a girl only group. The reason they joined us is that they heard we actually get [***] done and pass business amongst each other, where as the girl only group was a Prosecco fest where they just got [***] and started men hating but didn't actually pass any leads.
I am starting a group on linkedin, its called "Its still ok to be a bloke in accountancy"
All are welcome.
Ah gender pay gap reporting. A company I do some consulting for asked me to do their report last year.
I'm clearly missing something here... the start of your post sounds like you are doing a report for a client who pays their staff equally, but by the end you are saying you were being threatened about the stats as if they related to your own business.
I'm not following...
I not sure how you came to that conclusion, fortunately my own outfit is too small to warrant having to report.
It was the company I was reporting on (not mine) that was to be named and shamed unless I produced the workings for my submission on their behalf.
I not sure how you came to that conclusion, fortunately my own outfit is too small to warrant having to report.
He rang back (clearly drunk on his new found Hitler like powers) stating that if I did provide all of my workings that he would "name and shame me" in the press.
"Name and Shame us" for what exactly? paying everyone the same and having a team of female managers who were earning more bonuses than the men.
Not really going to ruin our reputation is it.
So I should read "Me/Us/Our" as "My client/My client/My client's"?
Yes sorry I have a non exec role with them so see myself as us or part of them.
Yes sorry I have a non exec role with them so see myself as us or part of them.
Much clearer, thank you for explaining :)
The majority of responses have made me even happier to be quitting this 19th/20th century profession in a few weeks.
Clearly, as in so many areas of business, many people seem incapable of standing back and recognising either conscious or unconscious gender bias.
Business has still got a long way to go until women are viewed and treated equally and whilst not meddling, as some people see it, might still allow all talent to float to the top, if it hadn't been for Suffragettes I dare say we'd only just have celebrated votes for women.
As far as celebrating a Man's day in business, that's the equivalent of creating a "White lives matter" day for racial bias.
Let's not.