I’m calling bulls**t on the Times Top 50 Employers for Women list: This is why you should too…
Is it responsible to assert claims on who is a ‘Top Employer’ for women, while women simultaneously speak out about their poor lived experiences in said workplaces? With the extensive reach and heavily promoted prestige of inclusion on the Times Top 50 Employers for Women list perhaps we need to rethink how responsible such claims are…
In this article, I hope to challenge the perception that inclusion on lists such as these mean that these workplaces are great places for women. Simply put, there is no guarantee so let’s stop pitching it like this.
The list
My LinkedIn newsfeed has been somewhat dominated by connections and companies promoting their acceptance to the ‘prestigious’ Times Top 50 employers for women list, published in partnership with Business in the Community (BiTC).
An annual affair which in BiTC’s own words is a ‘celebration of fifty organisations that kept gender equality a priority and demonstrated outstanding progress and examples of best practice, impact, innovation, and individual achievement.’
Sounds impressive, right?
Definitely… And in principle I fully support any initiative that moves the dial on designing women into our workplaces to create truly inclusive working environments.
So what’s the problem? (Or more specifically, what is my problem?)
As I scroll down the list of employer’s names I become increasingly irritated. Haven’t I read multiple reports of harassment and bullying from women for this organisation?! And this one… And this one…
If you’re unfamiliar with our work at Speak Out Revolution you may find this 3 minute video helpful for contextualising this article.
It took me less than a minute to randomly type employer names from the Times Top 50 Employers for Women list into the Speak Out database and find numerous examples of sexual harassment, sex discrimination & pregnancy and maternity discrimination. Behaviours that, I expect female readers will agree, do not factor into the definition of a top employer (well, definitely not for me).
I think to myself that the presence of these employers has to be a consequence of one of 3 things:
Non-representative reports of company culture received by Speak Out Revolution
A flawed assessment methodology or
A very low bar for what constitutes a top employer for women in 2021
I immediately rule out option 1. There is no better test of a company culture, than women’s lived experience of working at a company. I don’t care how many boxes a company ticks on their D&I programme, how wonderful their policy documents are or even their own reported improvement. I care about what women who work in those environments would say when no one else is there.
The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate.
- Gruenert and Whitaker
So let’s take a look at the experiences of women working in some of The Times Top 50 employers for women and I’ll leave you, the reader, to decide the calibre of such a list…
So call it pinkwashing, performative allyship, misleading marketing… I’m experienced enough to acknowledge that these lists don’t convey the full picture. What is worrying to me is the influence lists such as these, with their significant reach, have over young women entering the workforce who use them to guide their decision making for employment.
So my problem is with the assertion that these companies are ‘Top Employers for Women’. My question is: What women? Certainly not the women that have shared their experiences with the Speak Out Revolution.
If you’ve read this far, I’m interested to know what your views are on such lists?
Thanks for reading!
Speak Out Revolution is a Not-For-Profit, founded in 2020, on a mission to cancel the culture of silence on workplace harassment and bullying.
We host the anonymous, global Speak Out Survey empowering anyone to safely speak out about their workplace harassment and bullying & route to resolution for the benefit of others.
We will shortly launch the Speak Out Dashboard which presents high level trends on people’s lived experiences in the workplace (sourced by the Speak Out Survey) so everyone can advocate for more inclusive working within their sector or organisation.
Find out more and sign up to our mailing list today