Gems

Gender and Equality Mentoring for Senior Managers

Policy makers and senior managers in the public sector are expected to provide leadership and vision in fulfilling the three equality duties on gender, race and disability, and other equality obligations with regard to age and sexual orientation. This requires that they increasingly need to be able to apply equality analysis to all aspects of their organisations’ policy and practice.
Engender recognises that this can be a challenging role, especially as we move towards a single equalities act, and has brought together a team of consultants with a wealth of knowledge and experience in the different areas of equality Gender and Equality Mentors [GEMS] to provide support.
Building on Engender’s involvement in an EU Equal Development Partnership ‘Genderwise’ that evidenced the effectiveness of gender mentoring for senior officers in the Swedish, Austrian and Dutch armed forces we believe mentoring is more effective than providing consultants to ‘do equalities’ for you.
Our vision is a public sector that exudes expectations of equality, where the values and norms of each public body are so grounded in equality that incidents of inequality are met with disbelief, and where equality practice is integrated into everything they think and do.
To achieve this GEMS work one-to-one with managers, meeting them two or three times a month outwith the office environment to provide them support in developing their equalities lensing [ways of looking at things]. They do not do equality impact assessments or write equality schemes but rather support the senior manager in understanding the equalities implications of different aspects of the policy and practice they are responsible for. They support them to develop a clearer understanding of what to look for, of which questions to ask, of what issues to take into consideration and how to develop strategies, plans, budgets and ways of working with equality in mind.

Cost:

 The standard rate is £65 an hour. However, Oxfam and the Scottish Government have provided funds to Engender to promote the use of GEMS in the public sector so we can provide this service free for 6 months to the first managers that apply, although this comes with strings attached*.  

How much time will I have to allocate?

This depends very much on the individual’s needs, but generally it requires a 1 to 2 hour meeting every other week. Some mentors and their clients establish extra support by phone.

Why should we meet be away from the office?

This is not a hard and fast rule, but taking the physical step away can assist in enabling the manager to take a mental step back and see things differently. It also assists in creating the rapport needed for an effective mentoring relationship. Some GEMS and managers meet over coffee or lunch, others walk and talk…
Interested in GEMs?

 

Contact:    Niki Kandirikirira
                niki@engender.org.uk
                0131 558 9596