Five minutes with: Ann Pickering, O2's HR Director, & Jo Swinson, former Minister for Women and Equalities

Ann Pickering, O2’s HR Director, and Jo Swinson, former Minister for Women and Equalities, spoke to Executive Grapevine at O2’s Women in Leadership event last week about tackling gender inequality in the workplace.

What can business leaders do to stop parenting attitudes, and the subsequent allocation of leave, being pigeonholed?

Jo: There’s lots they can do. Shared Parental Leave now exists, but its development has been patchy; some organisations have done brilliantly, but others haven’t.

They should equalise the offer to men and women – give both access to the same benefits (and there’s nothing that’s stopping them from doing that )– then they need to look at cultural barriers to both the Shared Parental Leave but also the flexible working requests they both may make. There’s cause to believe that, at the moment, there’s an injustice occurring in the way this is playing out in the workplace.