Reviewing The Good Employment charter with the Women and Girls' Equality Panel
By Polly Palomino
Last month, the Women and Girls’ Equality panel got together to review Good Employment charter to ensure it acknowledges the challenges faced by women and girls in the workplace.
The panel gathered women and girls from all sectors and districts across Greater Manchester for a first of its kind event where we used acting and lived experiences to suggest improvements for the charter.
On the day, the facilitators used innovative techniques that created a safe collaborative space for the workshop.
After a few unsure looks, we started a warmup exercise, and the room was soon full of a giddy energy and laughter. The relaxed atmosphere helped to start important conversations.
Four groups were tasked to create a scenario to show the barriers that women and girls face in the workplace.
The teams discussed their workplace challenges, and the energy was palpable with groups of women and allies confronting the issues that inspired their stories.
Each group of strangers came up with very powerful and shocking scenarios that made us wonder how this is still happening.
The groups performed issues such as:
- Women losing their work status due to maternity leave and coming back to be seen as less capable than before, facing losing themselves not only at work but at home too.
- The lack of understanding of menopause and how women can be perceived as to be less productive due to symptoms.
- A boss unwilling to accommodate women who are pregnant making them carry heavy boxes, dismissing period discomfort and discriminating women due to lack of childcare.
- Finally, periods and how a young woman was seen as unprofessional and unprepared due to getting her period, as well as highlighting the lack of support of a company that doesn’t provide any pads or tampons for such emergencies.
Each story was very powerful and had so much to unpack even though they only lasted 5 minutes.
After each story we gave feedback on how employers could help in terms of reasonable adjustments to each scenario. Because of lived experience, people came up with strong solutions.
Inspired by these powerful stories, we wrote recommendations to bolster the charter.
The teams discussed the proposal and highlighted that being a good employer is more than just following policies.
After the discussion, the top 3 policies we believe the charter should advocate for women and girls in the workplace should be:
- Menstrual policy: Provide training to staff and management on menstruation, pregnancy, menopause. Mandatory period products in workplaces (safe, non-toxic, unscented) to be readily available in all toilets.
- Inclusivity training to make everyone aware of the issues faced by women and how this affects us all.
- Have menstruation and menopause policies that are separate, and not included together as ‘women’s health’.
These suggestions were delivered by two members of the Women and Girls’ Equality panel. The Charter will respond to the suggestions in January.
Thank you to everyone who attended. Your bravery and honesty helped shape a better employment future for women and girls.
