PILAA Wins UK Enterprise Awards

 

We are delighted that PILAA has won the award, Best EDI Specialist Professional Services Consultancy 2024, in SME News seventh annual UK Enterprise Awards.

This is a fantastic achievement, that would not be possible without the strong commitment and work ethic from our team, who continuously strive to always do better in the world of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

We would like to thank our clients and partners, where without them this work, recognition and mutual learning would not be possible.

We congratulate everyone who have made it possible, and we look forward to many more success stories as we move through the years.

Stay tuned for more exciting news to come!

 

Dr. Ope Lori, Founder & CEO 

Next in Line: Gender roles, values and worth

Last month we saw the landmark ruling in favour of more than 3,500 employees, who had taken their employer Next, the multinational clothing, footwear and home products retailer, to an employment tribunal, over a six-year battle for equal pay. The case found that staff who worked in the stores, predominantly women, were paid less than warehouse operatives, who were predominantly men. The argument made by the employer, was that the women were paid less in accordance with the ‘market rate’, where warehouse workers are paid more than retail workers, to reflect the labour market.

Next employee Helen Scarsbrook told the press:

“Anyone who works in retail knows that it is a physically and emotionally tough job.”
“We do lots of heavy lifting, the same as the men do in the warehouse. We lift the same boxes they lift.” (1)

And here in lies part of the rub. The image of either men or women working in the warehouse or in the stores respectively, is part of an age-old problem that highlights the difference between stereotypical assumptions on gender roles and the actual lived reality, which we’ll come back to later. It is also a matter of perception, and how we have been conditioned to see such roles and give value to them, based on inherent gender norms. However, the ruling panel stated that this was not the case, and that the difference of pay allocation was purely financial. They said that “direct discrimination” in relation to gender was not at play, and that “there was no conscious or sub-conscious gender influence in the way Next set pay rates” (2). Despite this ruling, in this article we suggest otherwise.

What we are seeing are the effects of social conditioning, and how we have been conditioned to see sex, gender and associated gender roles. They are so engrained that that they become the norm. As the employer stated, this is the first ruling of its kind, which doesn’t mean that it wasn’t an issue before, but that this is the first time that a microscope has been held up to the situation. As we know with the way microscopes work, sometimes you have to adjust the wheel to position the lens and bring into focus what was hidden before.

It’s about choosing to see things differently, hence why the tribunal also stated that the employer hadn’t given enough evidence to show that the lower pay discrepancy, wasn’t due to gender-based discrimination. It was inconclusive. No evidence to prove it and similarly, non to disprove it. I say choose to see things differently, because in order to address the constant battle of awarding equal pay to women and men, we need to actively engage and reflect on our decision-making processes. This is at the heart of mitigating unconscious bias. In fact, we suggest that because gender bias is so engrained in the way that women are seen as the lesser sex, it becomes unthinkable, that such a case could be directly related to gender discrimination.

 

Written by Dr Ope Lori, PhD

To read the full article, you must be a PILAA Member. 

Learning from Michael Mosley

 

Many people in the UK and elsewhere in the world will have heard the sad news about Dr Michael Mosley’s unfortunate untimely death last month at only 67 years old. For those who aren’t familiar with him, he was a medical doctor who became a high-profile broadcaster and author, educating large audiences and inspiring people to try to live better.

While Mosley left behind many legacies, one that is particularly useful for the workplace is his concept of “one thing”. The idea behind one thing is simple: rather than people and organisations thinking they have to make huge changes in their lives all at once, they should focus on one achievable goal at a time. If you try to change too many things at one time or to make overarching adjustments to many aspects of your life, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and incapable. No one can start a daily meditation practice, while also training for a triathlon and changing their diet and taking up a new hobby. But doing one of those things at a time, while still challenging, is more possible. Trying to do too much at once and finding that they can’t do it leads to people feeling like they can’t make any changes whatsoever so then they give up on the idea of improving their lives. Instead, you should focus on something small and manageable. When you succeed with that one task or goal, you’ll feel empowered and then you’ll be able to make another change. And so on: it will snowball and before you know it, you will have made a whole swathe of changes, just as you wanted to, but it will have been easier to make happen than attempting to do it all together.

Mosley recommended a lot of things people could try, and his suggestions were always supported by research and were evidence-based. Examples range from volunteering to balancing on one leg, from weight-lifting to cooking tomatoes. As Mosley pointed out in his One Thing show, volunteering decreases your cholesterol and improves your mental health, while balancing on one leg strengthens your core and challenges you mentally and physically, and lifting weights and doing resistance training decreases your blood sugar and reduces your risk of chronic conditions, which in turn helps you live longer. And if you’re wondering why the tomatoes have to be cooked, it’s because it’s known that tomatoes have more nutritional benefits, especially lycopene, when cooked than when raw, plus then you have a broader range of recipes you can use them in, but of course tomatoes are good for you when raw too, so eat them however you like them.

Plenty of these ideas can be applied to the workplace too. If you’re a manager, you could come up with some small but significant changes to implement at work.

 

Written by B.J Woodstein, PhD

To read the full article, you must be a PILAA Member.

Moving from stress bragging to happy chatting

Written by B.J Woodstein, PhD

“How are you doing?” you might ask a colleague as you meet by the kettle when it’s time for your mid-morning coffee. Your intention is to be friendly, maybe superficial, and to just have a quick chat while you wait for the water to boil. Your colleague sighs. “I’m SO BUSY!” they tell you. “I have a presentation to give tomorrow, plus that big report is due next week, and you know we have that meeting coming up with the possible new client that we have to prepare for. Also, my daughter’s in a play at school and obviously I have to go see her perform, and my kids have so many activities every week that I feel like a taxi, not a parent. Plus my mum has increasing needs. And then there’s…”

They go on and on, and you wish you hadn’t asked. It’s not that you don’t care, exactly, it’s just that you don’t see the point of complaining non-stop about how busy you are. It adds to your stress levels and you’d rather try to stay positive. Or could it be that you’re the colleague who rants about your workload? Are you the one people back away from at the water cooler, because you’re always showing off about your jam-packed calendar and your repetitive stress injury from all the typing you do?

Welcome to the world of stress-bragging. Stress bragging is just as it sounds like: it’s when people brag about how stressed out they are. Sometimes, as in the example above, it’s when they list all the things they have on their plate. At other times, it’s when folks say something along the lines of, “Sorry, can’t talk, I’m sooooo overworked and busy!” However they do it, they’re signalling that they’re so very important, because they have all these tasks to do.

Why do people stress brag? Well, we live in a workaholic culture, where people are expected to contribute constantly. In Western culture today, rest is looked down upon, as something the lazy do. But of course rest is essential. We need to take care of our bodies and minds, and we in fact work more efficiently and effectively if we take breaks. But this isn’t something often discussed; instead, it’s all about making lots of money, contributing to society and buying more things. When that’s what’s prioritised, it’s no wonder people stress brag; we want the world to know that we’re achieving the goals set by our society. Also, we obviously feel like we have to prove that our employers were right to hire us over other people, so we feel we need to offer constant evidence of our competence. It’s as if our stress levels become our brand, or are themselves proof of our right to be alive.

 

To read the full article, you must be a PILAA Member.