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25 January 2018
All’s Fair? Gender Issues in the
Workplace
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Stephen Gillick, Partner, Mason Hayes & Curran
Pensions – A Man’s World?
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39%
Gender Pensions Gap
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• Longer Life Expectancy
• Less Women Working Outside Home
• Part-Time
• Gaps in Employment History
• Gender Pay Gap
• Knowledge?
• Attitude To Risk?
• Trustee Board Composition
Key Pension Problems Facing Women
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• If Remuneration Continues – Pension Contributions
Continue
• If Remuneration Ceases - Pension Contributions Cease
• No Obligation Outside 26 Week Statutory Period
Maternity Leave
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• Close Gender Pay Gap
• Recognise Service – Problems Though?
• Trustee Board Gender Balance
• More Female Pensions Advisors
• Product Design
• Gender Specific Communications
Possible Solutions
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Thank You
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Elizabeth Ryan, Partner, Mason Hayes & Curran
Gender Issues in the Workplace
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• Sexual Harassment
• Gender Pay Gap Reporting
• Balancing Gender Participation on Boards
Gender Issues in the Workplace
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• Its not bullying
• Its not harassment
• See page 10 of Code of Practice – note subjective approach
• “Scanlon v St. Vincents”
• It must be “unwanted”
How is it defined?
Sexual Harassment
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• Employers are responsible for sexual harassment at work
• and “in the course of work” (conferences and social events)
• And for sexual harassment perpetrated by non-employees
(clients, customers, other business contacts)
Sexual Harassment
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• Demonstrate that he/she took reasonably practicable steps to
prevent or minimise the sexual harassment (See Code of
Practice, page 21)
(a) have a policy
(b) informal and formal complaints procedure
(c) possible disciplinary action
Employers Defence
Sexual Harassment
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• Not about equal pay
• Pay of all male employees measured against all female
employees
• Gender pay gap in Ireland is 13.5% while the European
average is 16.7%
• Reasons?
• Pay Gap Information Bill 2017
Gender Pay Gap Reporting
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• Directive 9496/17 – not enacted
• Sets a quantitative objective for the proportion of
underrepresented sex on Boards at 40% of non-executive
positions (and 33% of executive director positions) by 31
December 2022
• Listed companies to introduce procedural rules on selection
and appointment of directors
• Member states to require list of companies to report to
competent authorities at least once a year
• Member states to designate body (or bodies) responsible for
promotion and support of gender balance on boards
Gender Participation on Boards
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• Devise a policy to deal with sexual harassment or review the
current policy you have in place
• Consider whether your organisation might want to adapt
gender pay gap reporting on a voluntary basis for the purpose
of demonstrating your status as a good employer
• Review female participation on your boards and determine if
any measures could be taken to improve participation by the
underrepresented gender
Take Aways
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Thank You
Unconscious bias in
Decision-making
Dr Melrona Kirrane
Organisational Psychologist, DCU Business School
Professor of Leadership, PNU, Riyadh
Leadership &Talent Institute
Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself - Ludwig Wittgenstein [1889–1951]
• Obtain complete and perfect information
• Eliminate uncertainty • Evaluate everything
rationally and logically
End up with a decision that best serves the needs of the organisation
How to make a good decision
Antonio Damasio Professor of Neuroscience at
USC and the Salk Institute
The unconscious is in charge
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
Dr Sigmund Freud
Professor Timothy Wilson University of Virginia
We are exposed to 11,000,000 pieces of data per second
But we consciously process only 40 of these
A lot of our decisions have unconscious components
Heuristics in decision-making
Availability Representative
Heaven and Hell
• Heaven is where the Police are British, the Chefs are French, the Mechanics are German, the Lovers are Italian, and it's all organized by the Swiss.
• Hell is where the Chefs are British, the Mechanics are French, the Lovers are Swiss, the Police are German, and it's all organized by the Italians
Heuristics in decision-making
Confirmation Affect
Further forms of bias in decision-making
Overconfidence
The mother of all bias
Best-Possible Calibration and Discrimination
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 Subjective Probability
Obj
ectiv
e F
requ
ency
Doctors’ diagnoses of infection
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Subjective Probability
Ob
jective
Fre
qu
en
cy
Lawyers’ Predictions of Winning Their Case
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Subjective Probability
Ob
jective
Fre
qu
en
cy
Meteorologists’ Predictions of Precipitation
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1Subjective Probability
Ob
jective
Fre
qu
en
cy
Self-serving bias
The endowment effect
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
Willingness to Pay Willingness to Accept
Pri
ce (
in d
olla
rs)
Similar-to-me effect
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are
Bias in the organisational context
Boo, MA Rossi & Urzua, 2013 Krueger, Stone & Stone-Romero, 2014 Fessler, 2016 Puhl, Peterson & Luedicke, 2013
White-sounding names
Non-white-sounding names
What’s in a name?
<14% 60% CEOs
What is it about height?
6ft
<4% 34% CEOs
6ft2”
Jim Jane
More competent More hireable Higher starting salary
Self-confident Vigilant Emotionally stable Forceful Analytic Direct Frank Logical Aggressive Steady Consistent Assertive Desires responsibility Firm
Curious Helpful Intuitive Creative Understanding Neat Aware of their feelings Vulgar (not)
Words used to describe men
71% overlap 10% overlap
Words used to describe women
Words used to describe managers
Male entrepreneurs got 52% of what they requested….. female entrepreneurs got 25%
53% of applications from women were dismissed….38% were dismissed from men
68% of funding awarded to men despite identical pitch and professional training
60% of funding awarded to men
Are we really looking for someone who can be a great
leader?
Communion
Agency
Leadership
59
Role congruence theory
The Goldberg Paradigm
Fascinating Eh….yeah…
..thanks
Threats
Attract & Retain talent
Creativity & Innovation
Maintain brand and stock value
Agility Customer
responsiveness Litigation
Dealing with bias
Stop going with your gut
Bohnet, 2012
Is this bias?
“We need all our staff to be really punctual
because otherwise it throws off the schedule
badly. As a result I won’t hire any people from
Spanish speaking countries as they just don’t
understand the concept of time.”
Is this bias?
“It’s great - we have a load of gay men working with us. In retail, you need as much artistic creativity as possible and no one is as good as a gay man.”
Is this bias?
“I work with many older people at the moment but I find a lot of them cannot keep up with technology which makes my job harder.”
1. Learn how biased you may be
Take a test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
demo/
How biased are we likely to be?
• 2. Note the first thought that pops into your brain when you see someone different from yourself
• Is it biased?
1. “Did I learn this bias from a reliable source?”
2. “How many people do I actually know who conform
to this bias?”
3. “How many people do I know who do NOT conform
to this bias?”
• 3. Remember the Latin root of the word “respect”
means “to look again”
4. Become aware of the signals you are sending
Dealing with organisational bias
Interventions that don’t enhance diversity
% change in diversity over five years
T
Mandatory diversity training
Testing job applicants Grievance systems
White men
White women
Black men
Black women
Hispanic men
Hispanic women
Asian men
Asian women
Dobbins & Kalev, 2016
Interventions that get results
Voluntary training Self-managed teams Cross-training Championed recruitment drives
College recruitment targeting minorities
Mentoring Diversity task forces
Diversity managers
White men
White women
Black men
Black women
Hispanic men
Hispanic women
Asian men
Asian women
1. Clearly identify what constitutes success
Street smart
Academic background
Police chief
Stronger female CV
2. Increase structure at all points in a decision-making process
3. Collect data
• You can’t improve what you don’t measure
• But, just because something can be counted doesn’t mean it counts – Einstein
• The righter they measure the wrong stuff, the wronger they become – Ackoff
Representation metrics Recruitment metrics
Staffing metrics Transaction metrics
Training metrics Workplace Climate
metrics
4. All decisions must be objectively justifiable
5. Draw up a D & I strategy
References
• Bazerman, M. H., & Moore, D. A. (2008). Judgment in managerial decision making.
• Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Damasio, A. R., & Lee, G. P. (1999). Different contributions of the human amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex to decision-making. Journal of Neuroscience, 19(13), 5473-5481.
• Ceci, S. J., & Williams, W. M. (2011). Understanding current causes of women's underrepresentation in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(8), 3157-3162.
• Goldin, C., & Rouse, C. (2000). Orchestrating impartiality: The impact of" blind" auditions on female musicians. American economic review, 90(4), 715-741.
• Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Macmillan.
• Klaaren, K. J., Hodges, S. D., & Wilson, T. D. (1994). The role of affective expectations in subjective experience and decision-making. Social Cognition, 12(2), 77-101.
• Moss-Racusin, C. A., Dovidio, J. F., Brescoll, V. L., Graham, M. J., & Handelsman, J. (2012). Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(41), 16474-16479.
• Nieva, V. F., & Gutek, B. A. (1980). Sex effects on evaluation. Academy of Management Review, 5(2), 267-276.
• Wenneras, C., & Wold, A. (2001). Nepotism and sexism in peer-review. Women, sience and technology: A reader in feminist science studies, 46-52.
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Elizabeth Ryan t: +353 1 614 5283
Stephen Gillick t: +353 1 614 2198
Thank you, Q&A
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