For more than 40 years, the Gold Quill Awards of the International Association of Business Communicators have recognized communications work from around the world that soars above the average, taking public communication to new heights. The 2022 Gold Quill Award of Merit, widely acknowledged as one of the most prestigious forms of recognition in the industry, was awarded to Ontario’s Pay Equity Office for its topical and impactful campaign – Level the Paying Field – exploring topics related to economics, equity, women, work and wage equity.
“The economic impacts of pay inequity are large and measurable. We wanted to know more about gender and pay equity’s resurgence as an imperative to post-COVID economic recovery,” says Kadie Ward, Commissioner and CAO of Ontario’s Pay Equity Commission. The team at the Pay Equity Office set out to achieve this via a 6-part video and podcast series called Level the Paying Field in which Commissioner Ward hosts a series of compelling discussions about gender wage gaps and how to close them, with experts from the International Labour Organization, Harvard Business School, the University of Toronto, and more.
Join Ontario’s Pay Equity Office in celebrating this award-winning campaign that elevates the equity conversation to make the world a more equitable place for women to work, live, and thrive, and support closing the gender wage gap.
Dr. Zara Nanu, CEO and Co-Founder of Gapsquare, part of XpertHR, was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours list in recognition of her services on tackling global workplace inequalities and promoting fairness and inclusion.
Zara founded Gapsquare after hearing that it would take 217 years before the Gender Pay Gap could be closed. At the same time, it was said that by 2030, we’ll be in self-driving cars, and we’d be on our way to Mars. Zara recognised that these incredible advancements were possible because of the use of data, AI and tech and to achieve similar leaps in progress for pay disparity and workplace inclusion, there was potential to harness the same innovations to accelerate much needed social change.
Zara’s commitment to ensuring diversity and inclusion began in her native Moldova where she worked to bring an end to exploitative people trafficking rings which forced women into sweatshops. It’s with this same determination that Zara has sought to bring equality to the workplace by founding Gapsquare in 2016; harnessing data and AI technology to help organisations put a stop to biases and prejudicial practices preventing equality.
As part of her commitment, Zara is focused on creating a better world of work, one that has fairness at its core and is not held back by patriarchal structures and works tirelessly to ensure that pay equality is placed firmly on the national agenda.
Zara recognises that there is no quick fix when it comes to resolving pay inequality, but it is vital that organisations take active steps towards building a better future. The impact of the pandemic means that the time it will take to close the global gender gap has increased by a generation from 99.5 years to 135.6 years. Because of this, Zara is on a mission to focus on change at a global level, bringing Gapsquare to the US, and continuing to work with leaders in the UK to deliver meaningful change for a fairer and more inclusive future of work.
Gapsquare provides business leaders with actionable insights about their company’s existing pay gaps through their flagship software FairPay® Pro. To date, the organisation has helped over 80 organisations across the UK create fairer workplaces, including working with Wieden + Kennedy, Condé Nast and Accenture. Zara is taking Gapsquare’s mission to end pay inequality global, working with business leaders to get pay equity on the agenda and implementing the pay technology in the United States.
A leading voice in the campaign for positive change and action, Zara is Chair of the Women in Business Task Group and a member of the Global Future Council on Equity and Social Justice at the World Economic Forum. She has also been recently appointed to the Shinkwin Commission focusing on diversity and inclusion in the workplace.
On the occasion of the 66th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, an online panel discussion on Equal Work, Equal Pay: Reducing the Gender Pay Gap was organized as a side event by the UN’s Civil Society Youth Team.
This panel discussion which was moderated by Cairo Eubanks, Youth Representative of the New Future Foundation International, brought to the forefront, the challenges and successes in advancing more equitable economic opportunities for women across the globe from different backgrounds. Panelists included Shannnon Williams, leader of the Equal Pay Today campaign; Ishaan Shah an 18-year-old international anti-human trafficking, gender equality and climate action young leader; Samira Khan, a senior operations manager at Microsoft; Lina Al Qaddoumi, Gender Equality Manager at the United Nations Global Compact; and Lisa Wong, Senior Speciaist on non-discrimination at the ILO. Panelists shared good practices that serve to combat wage disparities based on gender and race while highlighting the critical role of women in decision-making processes.
Additionally, the important role of EPIC as a the only multi-stakeholder coalitiion actively promoting the principle of equal pay for work of equal value, and working torwards reducing the gender pay gap, was highlighted by both the Global Compact, a key EPIC member and the ILO, a member of the EPIC Secretiarat. The event which was attended by participants from all over the world, played a strong role in highlighting frameworks for combating gender and race-based wage disparities and the importance of achieving equitable economic opportunities for women.
This 90 minute event may be accessed here
A press release by Ministry of Labour and Workforce Development of Panama
As a post-pandemic strategy for the economic reactivation of the country, representatives of Government, labour and employer sector, presented this Monday, April 25, 2022, the National Plan for Equal Pay 2022-2025 of the Republic of Panama, being the outcome of shared work between government entities with the technical support of UN Women and the International Labour Organization (ILO).
During the state of emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the productive sector was affected at the national level, so the National Government activated dialogues through tripartite round tables, from which emerged proposals to strengthen formal employability, as well as economic support to families that had ceased to receive fixed incomes.
Another aspect relevant to salary payments is the gender salary gap, estimated at 11.5% in Panama, according to a UN Women study. This reality has prompted the proposal of strategies for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in the country.
The Minister of Labour and Labour Development, Doris Zapata Acevedo, said: “Today we have materialized the commitment to equality. For years we have heard the clamour of women demanding equal treatment, so from the National Government we took immediate action in this regard, leading by example from day one, opening spaces for the participation of women, as a way of recognizing the value and preparation of competent women to lead work structures and make decisions”.
At the presentation ceremony, the mechanisms for coordination, follow-up, monitoring and evaluation of the Plan were explained, which establishes what is necessary to ensure the correct development of functions, under the application of ILO Convention No. 100 on equal remuneration, ratified by Panama in 1958.
For the effectiveness of this Plan, the leading and collaborating entities will be differentiated for each of the measures, through the creation of Working Groups, as a governance mechanism that integrates all the actors.
The Ministry Labour and Workforce Development (MITRADEL), together with the Ministry of Social Development (MIDES) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic, jointly maintain programs and projects that contribute to wage equality, gender equality and women’s empowerment, such as the Gender Equality Seal Project for Private Enterprises.
On December 31, 2021, under the enactment of Executive Decree No. 74, the new minimum hourly wage rates were set, according to economic activity, occupation and size of companies, throughout the national territory according to region 1 and 2, which began to apply from January 16, 2022.
Read more about the event here
