What can we learn from the COVID-19 pandemic to enable women to reach their full potential in the workplace?

As we celebrate International Women’s Day 2021, here in the UK children return to schools after the latest national lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the last year, within the workplace, mothers and women of color in particular have disproportionately shouldered the mental and physical tolls of the pandemic, having been forced to make an unfair choice between caring for their families or advancing their careers. A study by McKinsey and LeanIn.org found that at least one in four women are considering downsizing their careers or leaving the workforce due to challenges created by the pandemic. The 2020 Global State of Small Business survey also found that women were overwhelmingly more likely to close their businesses as a result of the COVID pandemic than men were.

 Globally, the United Nations’ estimated that it may take more than a century to close the gender opportunity gap. We can’t afford any more setbacks, and I believe this is a real opportunity for us to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and make progress in supporting gender equity in the workplace.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that flexibility can be unlocked in many more jobs than previously thought. We know that flexible ways of working can enable organisations to retain talented women, and ensure that family or other responsibilities don’t remove women from the senior management pipeline.

At Mars, women have played a powerful role in our history and leadership for the past 100 years. But we have more to do and we are striving to empower more women within our workplace. Over half of our 130,000 Associates are women and we believe investing in women is not only the right thing to do for the next generation, it is the smart thing to do for business today. Even before the pandemic, we had been working to ensure our culture promotes and supports our family friendly policies like flexible working and parental leave for both men and women. It’s not just about part time work, but digital technologies making flexible hours and location a reality.

In addition to my role at Mars, I am incredibly proud to be the Chair of the Women’s Business Council, a UK government backed, business-led initiative, which aims to support industries to close their gender pay gaps and improve women’s representation. We have phenomenal senior leaders around the table and teams that cut across each of the sectors in which we work. Our objective is to put in motion key initiatives and support for government and other players to change the pay gap trajectory.

Despite the UK national gender pay gap being at its lowest ever (7.4 per cent for full-time employees) as at April 2020, there are still challenges of representation and of getting women first into middle management and from there into leadership positions.

With businesses across the country working tirelessly to respond to the unprecedented demands of the pandemic, the Women's Business Council appreciates the decision on gender pay reporting and that Business has been given an additional six months to report. 

The pandemic has made employers rethink traditional working practices and we look forward to supporting the Government's recovery programme, including the promotion of the benefits of agile working arrangements, which has many advantages for businesses and employees, especially women.

While the pandemic demanded immediate changes to support remote and flexible working at scale there is now an opportunity to learn from the experience and solidify and support an established way of working.

 If we’re to drive change at scale, we need to include the voices of all women and work together. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you think we can support gender equality in the workplace, particularly as we recover from the pandemic?

#HereToBeHeard

You can also add your voice to Mars’ #HereToBeHeard global crowdsourcing movement aimed at capturing voices of women from all walks of life to help inform the actions global businesses and society must take to close the gender opportunity gap as part of our Full Potential platform. We’re asking that women from around the world join us by answering this question: “What needs to change so more women can reach their full potential?” Find out more here.