Flexible working
At Unilever, we're proud to say we’ve been giving employees (and not just the women) the chance to work flexibly for years. Flexible working can mean working part-time, working from home or job sharing. Most who take up the opportunity are parents. But not all. One Unilever employee played hockey for the Olympic team and was allowed to work flexibly in order to train more often. Another was given a sabbatical to practice with his rock band.
When it comes to maternity and paternity packages, Unilever beats many other businesses. We also believe in educating managers about the merits of employing mums. After all, what other activity teaches time-management skills so quickly?
Equal pay
In 2001, the Equal Pay Taskforce was set up – it suggested that companies should conduct audits to assess whether men and women are paid equally for the same role. This was never actually incorporated into legislation. Despite this, and to live up to our own standards, we decided to instigate audits anyway.
In 2003, Unilever conducted a full equal-pay audit for all UK employees. Such audits are complex, but useful in giving pointers to gender-based patterns of employment, promotion, and pay that we may not have previously been aware of.
