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Pinter is proud to take a stand for gender equity. As part of our commitment to creating a more equitable workplace, we recently gathered together with some neighbouring businesses to discuss how we can all take action to support women and promote gender equality.
In this blog, we'll share some of the insights and ideas that emerged from our discussion, and highlight some of the exciting initiatives that we've been working on to create a more inclusive and empowering future for women.
The theme of International Women's Day 2023 is Embracing Equity. You may be more familiar with the word equality when it comes to discussions about gender. With more threats to women's rights and gender equality sprouting up across the globe, talking about equal opportunity is no longer enough. There has been a shift towards championing equity.
Equity and equality are two related but distinct concepts.
Equality refers to treating everyone the same, despite individual differences or circumstances. It involves making sure that everyone has access to the same resources, opportunities, and rights.
Equity, though, acknowledges that people have different needs and circumstances, and works to provide them with the support they require to achieve their full potential. It involves making sure that resources and opportunities are distributed fairly, based on individual needs and circumstances, rather than being distributed equally.
Equity vs. Equality Youtube Video
Creating an Equitable Workplace
In our conversations with local businesses about ways to achieve gender equity, one thing stood out: the importance of openness. Openness and transparency are highly valued at Pinter, Minor Figures and Signature Brew. Not only when it comes to gender but all elements of the business. Gathering honest and regular feedback from employees about their perceptions and experiences in the workplace gains vital insights.
But it doesn’t stop there. Surveys do wonders in highlighting themes and areas to focus on. But how does that impact change?
At Pinter, for International Women's Day, we surveyed our women employees on their experience in the company. We met with them to discuss the results. Following this, we had a company-wide meeting to brainstorm and create collective actions towards alleviating some of the concerns that were raised.
As a parallel effort, we are relaunching our People Platform, a group for employees to discuss their ideas about our company, championing the areas they feel we need to work on.
Feedback from the team at Signature Brew comes from engagement surveys, an all-staff committee and full team forums. They use these channels to identify and tackle problems as well as to celebrate successes. Signature is proud of the proactive role they play in helping their organisation and fellow brewers move towards gender equity.
Culture and mindset at the forefront
At Minor Figures, everyone is invited. It’s a celebration of humanity. People are individual, free-spirited, and unique. Every version of you is welcome - you’re free to be the weirdest and most wonderful version of yourself. No judgement. This is one of their core values and they hire people who encourage others to be themselves and celebrate all of the differences we each bring. This makes them better innovators and collaborators.
Celebrating Wins for Equity
Along with openness, representation is a huge driver of equality and inclusion. Its importance cannot be understated. Whether it’s gender, race or nationality, if someone representing a particular group is not in the room, then it’s less likely that their needs are going to be met or even discussed.
Having a leadership team that represents the wider workforce is especially important as this is where the most impactful decisions are made. At Pinter, half of our leadership team are women. At Minor Figures, there’s gender representation through all levels of the business. The organisation is 51% female and 3 of the 7 senior leadership roles are filled by women. They’ve got here without having to engineer it and that's because 'everyone's invited' aren't just words on a page; they live it every day.
At Signature Brew, they love to celebrate the wealth of talented women that they employ at both their breweries and venues. Each one is uniquely talented and challenges the bias each and every day.
Employees from Pinter and Signature have revelled in the opportunity to come together with other women from the brewing industry. Wildcard Brewery’s annual International Women’s Collaboration Brew Day is the perfect opportunity to collaborate and brew a beer together. Signature has also hosted its own celebratory events for the past five years with the women of the Manchester Punk Festival.
Attitude is a foundation for change. Company culture (we’re not talking pizza parties and bean bag chairs), the collective mindset of the organisation can help or hinder the work towards gender equity. Adopting a mindset of transparency, accountability and celebrating your wins is a good place to start.
Improving for the Future
Pinter’s Gender Pay Gap Accountability
Our team is focused on tracking and accountability around closing the gender pay gap. We’re committed to internally publishing our gender pay gap twice a year. We’re also going to implement “job families”. These groups of jobs with similar responsibilities or requirements will help us to measure the gap not only in the average salary but at the job role level.
Minor Figures' Early Careers Programme
Minor Figures is setting up an early careers programme with local community groups like Big Creative Education and Spear, to partner on giving opportunities to those who find it harder to get into the workplace. They want to give their employees the chance to share their unique knowledge and experience with young people in the area. They’re excited about putting down more roots in the community and supporting young talent.
Signature Brew's People and Culture Strategy
Over the last year, Signature has been working hard to update policies and processes to ensure that everyone in the company has access to the support, resources, treatment and opportunities they need to succeed.
Their People and Culture Strategy this year has five main aims around: Engagement, Performance, Development, Reward and Responsibility. They have a focus on maintaining and improving the employee experience through engagement, learning and development, and through fair and equitable reward strategies. The aim is for all of their employees to feel heard, and valued and have scope to develop and grow.
Bringing the community together
It was a real pleasure to bring people from our local area together to have open and honest conversations about our workplaces. Through sharing some of our wins for gender equity and discussing our plans for the future, it's clear that we not only share a postcode but also an eagerness to empower change within our organisations and in the local community.
We hope that this is the first of many meetings that we can use to discuss different areas in which we can support each other and the local community. We hope this inspires other local businesses to join us in our next community meet-up.