Communications Council to focus diversity battle on culture, CEOs and career
A year after creating a gender diversity working group, industry body The Communication Council has launched three “work streams” aimed at tackling the key issues affecting women in the industry.
The move follows a survey on behalf of the Communications Council which reported that 74 per cent of women in the industry claimed they have been treated differently in the workplace because of their gender. The online survey by D&M covered 258 female professionals in the industry.
“While there are many contributing factors to this perception of inequality, this figure is alarmingly high – particularly when on closer inspection, almost a quarter of respondents put this down to crude sexist remarks and references to appearance (24 per cent), 21 per cent to being paid less than men, and more than one in five stated it was due to a lack of respect, not being valued, appreciated or taken seriously (22 per cent),” said Lorraine Jokovic, a spokeswoman for the group and also the CEO of multicultural agency Loud.
The three areas tackled will be:
- “culture, client demands and flexible work practices”;
- “CEO awareness and building people-centricity in the agency model”
- “career, ambitions and leadership”
Other members of the working groups include: Brandon Bisnette (The Monkeys), Elizabeth Clerke (Ogilvy), Michelle Hutton (Edelman), Suzanne Acteson (Buchanan Group), and Suzie Shaw (Host). They will join work stream leaders including chair of the gender diversity working group, Alex Allwood (Holla Agency) and Margaret Zabel (The Communications Council).
The groups will report in August to the national board before releasing the results more widely.
Nic Christensen
“… almost a quarter of respondents put this down to crude sexist remarks and references to appearance (24 per cent), 21 per cent to being paid less than men, and more than one in five stated it was due to a lack of respect, not being valued, appreciated or taken seriously (22 per cent)…”
As a male working in PR, salary issues aside (not that I even know what women in equivalent roles earn), I can tick the box on all the other issues.
It’s disappointing to see the Comms Council following in the footsteps of the PRIA by focusing on ‘women’s issues’ as if women are in the minority. Last time I looked around, PR was dominated by women.
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