Deloitte named in Times Top 50 Employers for Women 2017 list

Deloitte, the business advisory firm, has today been named in The Times Top 50 Employers for Women 2017 list. The Times Top 50 Employers for Women supplement is published in partnership with Business in the Community, the Prince’s Responsible Business Network.

Emma Codd, managing partner for talent at Deloitte, said: “We are proud to have been named in the Times top 50 Employers for Women list for the second year running. Gender equality is a critical business priority for us and we have worked hard to ensure that women can succeed in our firm. The proportion of female partners at Deloitte has increased from 14% in 2014 to 18% in 2016 and we have a target of 25% by 2020. We are recruiting more women at both student entry and experienced hire level and we have seen a significant decrease in the number of women leaving the firm. This has been achieved through a number of targeted interventions and – in particular - a focus on ensuring that our workplace culture truly enables women to have a successful career alongside commitments outside the workplace.

“Last year, we became one of the first large firms in the UK to report our gender pay gap, giving us the opportunity to show not only that we fully understood why we have a gap, but also the significant actions we are taking to close it. All of these actions are focused on driving meaningful and long-term change within our firm.”

Kathryn Nawrockyi, gender equality director, Business in the Community, said: “Well done to Deloitte on being named in The Times Top 50 Employers for Women 2017 – the process was highly competitive so they should be very proud of their success. Their efforts are increasing understanding of the barriers to equality that women face at work, and I hope other employers will follow their lead.”

Emma Tucker, deputy editor of The Times, said: “In the seven years since The Times first published the Top 50 Employers for Women supplement we have seen great advances towards gender equality in the workplace. However, more remains to be done both in the boardroom and on the shop floor and we are again delighted to support Business in the Community's campaign to create a fairer and better working environment for women.”

The alphabetical and unranked list acknowledges UK employers that are making gender equality a key part of their business strategy, with consistent commitment to creating inclusive workplace cultures and progressing women in the workplace that covers their entire organisation at all levels. The list involves a comprehensive submission process managed by the gender equality campaign of Business in the Community.

The full list of The Times Top 50 Employers for Women 2017 can be found online at: http://gender.bitc.org.uk.

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Notes to editors

Deloitte has a number of schemes in place to help encourage gender diversity within the workplace. These include:

Return to Work internship programme
Deloitte’s ‘Return-To-Work’ programme launched as a pilot in September 2015. The firm was the first professional services firm in the UK to launch this type of programme. While open to all it is primarily aimed at helping senior business women return to work after a career break of more than two years. The first cohort of eight women completed the 12 week pilot programme in December 2015, with over half going on to take a permanent or contract role with the firm. Following the success of the pilot programme, the scheme was extended in 2016 to 17 women for 20 weeks.

Agile working
We have worked hard to ensure that we provide a working environment where our people can balance a successful career with their daily lives, whether that be for family commitments or other outside interests. While we had previously offered agile (flexible) working option to our people, we realised that they frequently were not taking advantage of them. We thus worked hard to not only design agile working options that would work for both our people and our firm but also to ensure that any cultural barriers were removed. From a programmatic perspective we introduced Time Out, which enables our people to take a month’s unpaid leave at a time that suits both them and the business – no reason is required, and our people are encouraged to share the benefits of the experience when they return. To date over 600 of our people have either taken a Time Out or are in the process of applying to take one.

Working Parents Transitions Programme
On notifying the firm of pregnancy or adoption, all parents and line managers of primary care givers are invited to join our Working Parents Transitions Programme (WPTP), with the aim of ensuring a smooth transition to and from parental and adoption leave. Delivered by external coaches, sessions conducted pre, during and post leave help build peer support networks, share experiences and explain the wider support the firm offers. Line managers of primary care givers attend separate mandatory sessions to understand challenges that can be encountered by those returning from longer forms of parental leave and best practice support that can be provided throughout the transition.

About Business in the Community
The gender equality campaign at Business in the Community, the Prince’s responsible business network, is committed to empowering employers to accelerate change for women in the workplace. We work with our membership of employers, from private, public and education sectors to offer tailored, practical and pragmatic advice on workplace gender equality issues. Business in the Community is a business-led charity committed to shaping a new contract between business and society. http://gender.bitc.org.uk/

About Deloitte
In this press release references to Deloitte are references to Deloitte LLP, which is among the country's leading professional services firms.

Deloitte LLP is the United Kingdom member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”), a UK private company limited by guarantee, whose member firms are legally separate and independent entities. Please see www.deloitte.co.uk/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of DTTL and its member firms.

The information contained in this press release is correct at the time of going to press.

Member of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited.