Women’s wellbeing at work

women at work

Spinnaker was pleased to contribute to the Women & Work All Party Parliamentary Group’s 2020 report on Wellbeing at Work, which has now been published.

The Group, chaired by Jess Phillips MP and Laura Farris MP, wanted to look at wellbeing specifically:

“We chose the APPG’s theme for 2020 of women’s wellbeing at work before we knew the full impact the virus would have on our economy, society and labour market. However, the pandemic has shone a light on wellbeing and its importance. Previously, wellbeing was often seen as a ‘luxury add-on’ or an issue for the home, unrelated to the workplace. However, the collision of home and work, coupled with the additional pressures of the pandemic, has demonstrated the inextricable link between wellbeing and work. The pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities and women have suffered in different ways through unemployment, financial hardship and feelings of isolation. It has also become clear that we must view wellbeing holistically.”

Over the next weeks we will examine the report but we wanted to highlight the impact of the pandemic on women’s wellbeing and work lives in general in this first blog.

COVID challenges

Whilst the data shows that more men have died from COVID-19 globally compared to women, we know that women have been hit disproportionately by the economic and social impact in the UK. Here’s a snapshot of some of the ways women have been affected:

• 36% of young women work in sectors that have been closed, eg. restaurants, shops and leisure facilities
• 69% of low paid earners are women, and 54% of people on zero-hours contracts are women
• Mothers are reported to spend 5 hours per day home schooling as opposed to 2 hours a day from fathers
• 78% of women surveyed said they found it challenging managing childcare and their paid work during lockdown
• Women are 47% more likely to have lost their jobs or quit during this time, and are 14% more likely to have been furloughed
• Women’s monthly incomes are expected to fall by 26% as a result of the pandemic, as opposed to men’s falling by 18%

Ethnic minority backgrounds and disabled people affected

Deeper analysis shows that the sectors most affected have a higher-than-average proportion of workers from a minority ethnic background. A survey conducted by the Runnymede Trust found that only 35% of people from an ethnic minority background said they had not been affected financially by the pandemic, compared to 54% of white people.

Further, evidence from People Management highlights the impact of the pandemic on disabled people: 71% of disabled people in employment in March 2020 were affected by the pandemic, through a loss of income, being furloughed or being made redundant.

Next time we will shine a light on how employers can support women’s employment during this time.

For more information on the Women & Work APPG, contact our Spinnaker representative for the Group, Managing DirectorTeresa Peacock at [email protected]

Spinnaker’s commitment to gender diversity

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#choosetochallenge

On International Women’s Day 2021, Spinnaker raises its hand to show a collective commitment to challenging and calling out inequality within the maritime industry.

Our work supporting leadership teams, HR professionals and hiring managers provides us with lots of opportunity to support, promote and challenge gender diversity in shipping – for example:

  • Salary benchmarking – our salary reports help members ensure their pay is both fair and equitable, using data that is reliable and free from bias.
  • Gender pay gap and diversity statistics – we help Maritime HR Association members compare their business to others, identify challenges and opportunities. We share this knowledge with other industry bodies and associations to bring about wider change.
  • Leadership development programmes – run globally to support today’s managers in becoming tomorrow’s leaders. We include personality profiling to enhance awareness of self and others, to develop high performing and inclusive teams.  
  • HR conferences – bringing together HR professionals from across the industry to promote employer best practice and people initiatives, with a regular focus on diversity and inclusion.
  • Interview Pool – we promote this initiative in our own recruitment work, and volunteer time to provide more balanced interview panels across the industry overall.
  • Diversity in Maritime Speaker Bank – we volunteer for the speaker bank to help ensure panels are inclusive and offer diversity of thought. 
  • Managing Director Teresa Peacock is Membership Secretary of WISTA UK and sits on the All Party Parliamentary Group for Women and Work, in addition to the Diversity in Maritime Taskforce subgroup on recruitment.  A full toolkit to help you with your Diversity and Inclusion can be found at

            www. maritimeuk.org/priorities/people/diversity-maritime/toolkits/

In 2019 Spinnaker was awarded Maritime UK’s Diversity Award, reflecting our work to promote diversity and inclusion via our leadership development programmes, at the annual Maritime HR conference and through our gender pay gap analysis for the industry. Of course, there is always more that can be done and we are committed to continuing our efforts to support equality in the ever-changing world of work.