More employees are facing sexism at work

As employees and businesses react to the recent Presidents Club scandal, it seems gender discrimination is rife at work.

85 per cent of women and 80 per cent of men have witnessed gender discriminatory acts in the workplace, new research by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has revealed.

The report, A Blueprint for Balance: time to fix the broken windows, looks into gender diversity best practices and found that the majority of businesses are struggling to make a difference to achieve a gender-balanced workplace.

Ann Francke, chief executive of the CMI, said: “There’s a difference between rhetoric and reality. I have no doubt that there are people in senior levels of organisations who want to help, but we’ve seen with the pay gap, companies’ cultures and continuing cases of sexual harassment that it’s not enough,” reports HR Magazine.

The survey of 856 managers found that one in four say that their work colleagues and senior staff ‘actively and visibly champion gender initiatives’.

Francke added: “As the research shows, the majority of workers have witnessed some form of sexist behaviour but nothing is being done about it.

“This is partially out of complacency; where they’ve become so used to this behaviour that it’s brushed aside as cases of ‘men behaving badly’, or they become too scared to come forward because of how it will affect their careers.

“It’s time for HR, and for everyone in the workplace, to get tough on sexism and show that it’s unacceptable and that there will be consequences.”