OUR WOMANIFESTO
Birdsoup is the product of our own experiences. More than that, it’s a reaction to those of our friends and colleagues too. It’s that fire-in-your-belly, get-you-out-of-bed-in-the-morning, just-hold-on-a-minute drive to make a difference.
We love that gender equality is an incendiary topic now, but the staunch old disparities remain; the pay gap still exists, fewer women make it to the top, many women leave when they become mothers – you know the score.
The evidence shows that women and men do equally well throughout education and into the early part of their careers. At this point the workforce is broadly a 50/50 split. So what happens 10-15 years on? The picture becomes very different, where the imbalance doesn’t just tip the scale, but shifts to a point where only 20-25% of employees at board level are women.
These issues are well documented, but actual ways to redress these imbalances are less evident. Lip service is the phrase we hear all the time – this usually means the organisation knows it has to do something about it, but doesn’t know where to start.
At birdsoup, we are determined to change things. We need to find the right partners to do this; those who want to shake things up and aren’t scared of tipping the applecart all over the street. For employers, that means walking the talk: a high degree of self-consciousness from every employee, starting from senior management all the way down.
For employees, the changing nature of work shows us that we all now need to manage our own careers. What we do at birdsoup, is help individuals develop their own ideas of career success and mark out their pathway to achieving that.
Personal development is the responsibility of two people: the individual and their organisation.
Everyone is “talent” not just the chosen few.
Women don’t have a shelf life, they have families: don’t lose or underuse your women.
Prepare your business for the workplace of the future: act like a people business, improve recruitment, retention, happiness and creativity. Why? It’ll improve your bottom line.
Don’t pay lip-service to making change in how you approach gender equality. Talk is cheap. Listen to what people want, don’t just allow bitching in the kitchen.
Change requires bravery, are you up for the challenge?
