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MAXWELLS.DUBLIN

Solutions, not problems: Changing the narrative of workplace equality

To make a real difference, and fast, campaigners want to nail down practical resolutions.

SONYA LENNON IS “pretty sick of talking about the problems” around workplace equality. The designer and entrepreneur wants to focus more on solutions.

“We all know what the problems are. Every room across the country is talking about the problems. That’s enough now. Let’s agree on what the problems are and agree what the solutions could be and move forward,” Lennon said, after the inaugural WorkEqual Conference at the Marker Hotel last month. 

That was the genesis of the conference, she said from the depths of a green velvet chair in a quiet hallway. 

The conference was set up by Dress for Success Dublin – founded by Lennon – and is an affiliate of the international non-profit Dress for Success Worldwide. The organisation raises awareness about gender inequality in the workplace. 

It included speakers from the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI), Construction Industry Federation (CIF), ESB, Ryanair, senators, TD’s, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and several representative bodies. 

“You can’t fix this in one fell swoop. You have to chunk it out at the priority areas that you believe, based on international practice and data, can make a real difference at an accelerated pace,” Lennon told Fora.

These priority areas were hashed out in afternoon break-out groups, which looked at the main issues and how they should be targeted at a policy level – with key recommendations to go forward to government. 

“Any campaign starts with awareness. If nobody is talking about the issue it’s very, very hard to get a foothold with decision-makers.”

This is the fourth year of the WorkEqual campaign. During the afternoon, Lennon gets word that the event’s sponsor, SOLAS, will be sponsoring it for the next three years also. 

“It’s taken us that long to find ourselves in a situation with a room full of 120 people of diverse backgrounds and remits, talking about this,” she added. 

NO FEE SOLAS DRESS FOR SUCCESS WORK EQUAL MX-12 MAXWELLS.DUBLIN MAXWELLS.DUBLIN

Beyond the money 

A recent Ibec report on the gender pay gap noted that the problem often isn’t a lack of equal pay for equal work, but rather that a company has more women in lower-paid and part-time roles and more men in higher-paid roles.

It added that this indicates challenges such as why there are not more women in senior positions, why there are more women in lower-paid roles, and why do caring responsibilities traditionally fall to women. 

According to the latest Eurostat figures, Ireland’s gender pay gap is 13.9%, lower than the EU average of 16.7% and down from 17% in 2007. But if we keep going at this rate, globally, it will take about a century to close. 

New upcoming legislation will make it mandatory for companies of a certain size to disclose their gender pay gap annually, why it exists and what they plan to do about it. 

According to Ibec, this is unlikely to change an imbalance in roles within companies – but it will be an important step towards “constructive debate and action at a faster pace than has occurred to date”.

Back at the conference, Lennon pointed out that progress will be made by ticking off “small wins” and increasing them year by year. 

But the difficulty with the gender pay gap – just one aspect of workplace equality – is that companies can often go down before they go up and this can put some off. 

“If you have a predominantly male sector and you start inviting women to take part and the majority of those women are coming in as entry-level, you end up with way more women at a lower salary scale, so you could make your pay gap reporting look worse,” Lennon said. 

“But if you can rationalize that and say, ‘we want to have gender representation within our organization, and we’re willing for numbers to go down before they go up, and along with that part of our strategy is to recruit into middle and senior roles’, then you can start to make a difference,” she added. 

NO FEE SOLAS DRESS FOR SUCCESS WORK EQUAL MX-3 MAXWELLS.DUBLIN MAXWELLS.DUBLIN

Problems vs solutions

The top five issues identified through the conference were tackling societal norms, flexibility in the workplace, women in leadership, the gender pay gap and a strategy for caring responsibilities. 

Earlier in the day, UK journalist Christine Armstrong spoke about how it can be difficult to balance parenting with childcare and a career – noting that flexible working can in some cases work against parents, making it a nuanced issue.  

Professor Michelle Millar, the dean of students at NUIG, took to the stage with Lennon to go through these points in finer detail. 

Millar pointed out that in feedback from the groups there was a sense of wanting flexibility for all, not just for parents and it should be a standard within the workplace. 

The predominant flow of conversation, however, was on tangible solutions. 

Attendees and facilitators called for universal childcare, to examine options around parental and paternity leave, and for a review of education to avoid historical stereotyping. They also highlighted other priorities including a review of school and work start times, unconscious bias training for educators and male teaching scholarships.

“Reading through all the recommendations, there’s some that fall naturally into government policy, some of that fall into business policy, and some that fall into personal responsibility,” Lennon said while speaking on stage. 

A lot of the necessary data is available, she said, and with the human input gathered from the day’s discussions, she hopes to end up with “a very live document that is based on numbers and narrative”.

Speaking to Fora after the event added that “it has to start with awareness”.

“So what do we want to teach our kids? What do we want to teach our teachers? How do we want to care for our care workers? How do we want to make this better and more fit for purpose? How do we want our workers to feel at the end of the day when they go home to their families?”

She thinks there’s a “huge amount of fear within the business sector about what this is going to mean”, she said. 

“That’s really part of our role as advocates to say that this government-enforced measure, which says that you have to report on all your gender data, means that it is an opportunity for you to be a better company, with better gender representation, better innovation, better decision making and better outcomes, ” she said. 

“Rather than looking at it as a box-ticking exercise and an onerous duty, that’s the pain in the ass, think about it as as a way to be better leaders.”

Get our Daily Briefing with the morning’s most important headlines for innovative Irish businesses.

Written by Zuzia Whelan and posted on Fora.ie

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    Mute John Smith
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    May 18th 2018, 2:35 PM

    At least 2000 of the workers will be imported by Google.

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    Mute Dave Doyle
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    May 18th 2018, 2:39 PM

    @John Smith: Great….

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    Mute Dave Doyle
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    May 18th 2018, 2:39 PM

    @John Smith: Great….

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    Mute Dave Doyle
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    May 18th 2018, 2:40 PM

    @John Smith: Great….2000 brand new tax payers contributing to the economy so we can fund the layabouts who have never worked a day in their lives.

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    Mute John Smith
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    May 18th 2018, 2:48 PM

    @John Smith:

    Great…..

    Professionals contributing to our growing economy.

    There are many John Smiths, not all of us are the same.

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    Mute Damon16
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    May 18th 2018, 3:08 PM

    @John Smith: These ‘imported workers’ will pay a lot in income tax (most at the higher rate), will use little in the way of social services and spend money in the local economy (food, bars, restaurants) – what’s to whinge about. Also, the reason Google recruits from abroad is because they can’t find the skills here.

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    Mute John Smith
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    May 18th 2018, 3:19 PM

    @Sean O’Brien:

    I welcome people from other places working in our country. It breathes fresh life into a society. It means we do not stagnate. That said, we need much better management of housing by government, it will lead to failure if it is not urgently addressed, it’s a huge problem.

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    Mute Dietrich Död
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    May 18th 2018, 3:56 PM

    @John Smith: I’ve no issue with Google bringing in workers from abroad, but where the hell are they going to live?

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    Mute John Smith
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    May 18th 2018, 3:56 PM

    @Sean O’Brien:

    What has Google being there got to do with anything? Why can’t Google be there? What else would you have there? It’s already zoned for offices, do you have an ideological opposition to Google? What’s wrong with social housing being around it? Would be prefer people in social housing be segregated? Why is it unsustainable? Seems perfectly sustainable to me. What is not sustainable is not building more homes.

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    Mute Jonathan
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    May 18th 2018, 4:03 PM

    @John Smith: Great…where are they gona live

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    Mute psychiatrist
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    May 18th 2018, 4:32 PM

    @John Smith: My estimate is that at least 1500 of the anticipated 2500 jobs will be filled by graduates from Irish universities. Not claiming that they are all Irish, which is beyond the point anyway.

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    Mute John Smith
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    May 18th 2018, 4:47 PM

    @Sean O’Brien:

    There is a whole area around Poolbeg that is to be redeveloped for housing. In Helsinki social housing is mixed with prime real estate. There are no rough areas in Helsinki because of it. This idea that poor people should live in an area because rich people are paying more might make people feel that they are worth more because they pay more, but it does little for social cohesion. Housing is the problem of the government, Google having office space has zero to do with it. It’s a high tech area, it drives our economy now and into the future. We should welcome it rather than whine and moan.

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    Mute Fergus Flanagan
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    May 18th 2018, 6:00 PM

    @Sean O’Brien: Sounds like your beef is with City Planning and not Google. Although sounds like you just have an axe to grind with your ex employer.

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    Mute All Holey
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    May 18th 2018, 6:59 PM

    @Dave Doyle: Well said you sir!!

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    Mute Charliegrl80
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    May 18th 2018, 7:04 PM

    @John Smith: yes, indeed but with a lot of unskilled workers “nothing wrong with that per-say” as a low paid worker they couldn’t afford to live or commute to Dublin.

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    Mute John Judd
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    May 19th 2018, 7:56 AM

    @John Smith: imported because we don’t have enough science, engineering and IT graduates that’s why !

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    Mute Randal McNally
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    May 18th 2018, 5:12 PM

    More of our countries assets sold for a song by Nama and started by Michael Noonan when in Minister., and yet they can’t (or Fine Gael Ethos Won’t) solve the housing crisis. Varadkar, Murphy etc. All style and no substance !

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    Mute Bilbo Baggins
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    May 18th 2018, 5:24 PM

    @Randal McNally: €170 million is a fair ‘song’

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    Mute Billy Heffernan
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    May 18th 2018, 6:52 PM

    @Bilbo Baggins: it doesnt actually say how much the site was sold for. It was up for 170 alri.

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    Mute Cos Sullivan
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    May 18th 2018, 7:56 PM

    @Randal McNally: …noonan should be in jail .

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    Mute bopter
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    May 18th 2018, 2:26 PM

    28,000 sqm for only 2,500 employees, i.e. 11 sqm or 120 square foot per person.

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    Mute Shane Corry
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    May 18th 2018, 3:28 PM

    @bopter: The big tech companies usually go for about 10-12 sqm per person rather than the traditional financial layout of 8-9 sqm per person because they tend to use 140-160cm wide desks vs 120-140cm and extra space is taken up by “amenities” not found in other workplaces. Gym, yoga room, games room, bigger canteen, more break-out spaces etc.

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    Mute John Smith
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    May 18th 2018, 3:57 PM

    @bopter:

    bopter is the best username I’ve ever heard, love it.

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    Mute Colette Kearns
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    May 18th 2018, 2:53 PM

    It’s gas really, google employees will be working for them , then handing back their wages to them for rent. A bit to clan like for me. On saying that hope it will bring in plenty of revenue!

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    Mute B9xiRspG
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    May 18th 2018, 3:22 PM

    @Colette Kearns: It’s optional if you want to live on site with Google but useful if you are new to the country.

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    Mute Shane Corry
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    May 18th 2018, 3:32 PM

    @Colette Kearns: It’s possible they will use them solely as short-term corporate apartments – for new staff from abroad to stay in while they find their own place & for staff that are staying over from a different country for a couple of months.

    Otherwise it’s likely to be fairly senior people only as these apartments in terms of size / location are the type to typically go for €3K-€4.5K per month.

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    Mute psychiatrist
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    May 18th 2018, 4:41 PM

    @Colette Kearns: What’s gas about this? Dublin City sells land to business and housing all over Dublin, and it’s Dublin and the Devs who made money out of nothing.

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    Mute Colette Kearns
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    May 19th 2018, 1:54 AM

    @B9xiRspG: ah Jim I’m just saying I would find it all a bit much, you’d end up living in each other’s ear! And what if you’re boss ends up being your next door neighbor? Just stuff like that.

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    Mute Ted Murray
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    May 18th 2018, 6:46 PM

    Everything gets “snapped up” from Nama, the bargain bin of property sales.

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    Mute Cian O Donoghue
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    May 18th 2018, 6:59 PM

    @Ted Murray: not sure 170 mill is a bargain.

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    Mute Ted Murray
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    May 18th 2018, 7:42 PM

    @Cian O Donoghue: __ Any top-notch commercial firm would have at least doubled that :p

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    Mute Rory J Leonard
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    May 18th 2018, 7:48 PM

    @Cian O Donoghue:

    Google probably got a little discount off that list price, and if they place those 46 apartments on AirBnB after they get a lick of paint, the payback, like it’s search engine, will be speedy.

    Their visiting top brass will just have to pay market rents, otherwise our taxman will be in like flynn with a BIK!

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    Mute Charles Williams
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    May 18th 2018, 9:13 PM

    @Cian O Donoghue: Google are not know for overpaying be in income tax or anything else.?

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    Mute Charles Williams
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    May 18th 2018, 9:11 PM

    NAMA is a public entity tasked with getting the best price for private assets bailed out by the taxpayer, we need to know exactly how much Google paid and how much the taxpayer recovered from this deal.

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    Mute shits ville
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    May 19th 2018, 12:33 AM

    @Charles Williams: available to the public on the PRSA website – just like the residential property price register. Sale price should be available a month or so after the sale closes. No smoke & mirrors.

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    Mute The Viking
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    May 18th 2018, 4:22 PM

    You would think they would lease living quarters to staff. They’re gonna need it.

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    Mute AlchemyIrl
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    May 19th 2018, 8:15 AM

    We are still paying USC !

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    Mute Stevie Doran
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    May 19th 2018, 12:48 AM

    0.5% commission for sale on €170million? Drinks on the auctioneer!

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    Mute Bob Hoover
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    May 20th 2018, 8:52 AM

    Google will eventually buy out the whole of Barrow Street imo.

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    Mute Geralyn Early
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    May 19th 2018, 8:53 AM

    Where will this €170 million go? I us

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