Critically evaluate the practices/behaviours in an organisation.

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Gender at the BBC from a Symbolic Perspective

This essay will analyse the practices and behaviours of the BBC with regard to gender, more specifically the gender pay gap, from a symbolic perspective. From a modernist perspective, gender can be described as the fixed physical and anatomical characteristics that make someone a man or a woman. However, this is an example of gender essentialism, the belief that males and females are born with distinctively different natures, determined biologically rather than culturally (Chandler and Munday, 2011). A more symbolic description of gender comes from the World Health Organisation (WHO), “Gender refers to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men, such as norms, roles, and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society to society and can be changed.” (WHO, 2013). This essay will aim to identify the effects these socially constructed characteristics have on the practices and behaviours of the BBC and how they contributed to a gender pay gap. First, a rationale for the choice of organisation will be presented, followed by an explanation of the choice of theoretical perspective. This will be followed by a critical literature review on the gender pay gap and by an analysis of the BBC’s practices and behaviours in relation to the gender pay gap. The essay will finish with a conclusion.

Broadcasting companies, in general, negotiate a range of often contradictory interests, values, contexts, and expectations which make them especially prone to public conflicts. This is further amplified with the BBC as it occupies a unique position within UK broadcasting, as it is publicly funded. This positions the BBC as a guardian of the public sphere and poses specific dilemmas for the organisation in that higher standards of management ethics are expected in comparison to its commercial rivals. Consequently, its approach to managing its employees must be highly sensitive to changes in the socio-cultural and political environment, given the greater risk of its attracting negative publicity than other media

companies (Arthurs, 2013). This has been demonstrated with the BBC being involved in several public crises including: the handling of revelations about Jimmy Saville; the lewd behaviour of its presenters Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand; a successful legal challenge to an editorial decision to displace older women in a prime-time programme; and a crisis this essay will be focusing on, the BBC’s gender pay gap controversy. These controversies and the position the BBC occupies are why it is the focus of this essay. The next section will give a rationale for the choice of theoretical perspective.

The selected approach is the symbolic perspective. This perspective according to Hatch (2018) is anti-positivist. Anti-positivism is a theoretical stance that proposes that the social realm cannot be studied with the same scientific methods of investigation utilised within the sciences, and that investigation of the social realm requires a different epistemology. Fundamental to that epistemology is that a true understanding of an organisation can only be gained through researching its employees’ experiences (Macionis & Gerber, 2011). The symbolic perspective was chosen as the modernist perspective is too general and ill-suited to reflect the nuance and variability found in human interaction. Also, because the values and beliefs of researchers cannot be fully removed from their inquiry, research on human beings by human beings cannot yield objective results, which the modernist perspective demands. Rather than seeking an objective perspective, this essay will use the symbolic perspective to look for meaning in the subjective experiences of individuals engaging in social interaction. This aligns with the theme of gender, as gender refers to socially constructed characteristics and the way people experience these characteristics can vary significantly and is full of nuance. The modernist perspective looks for quantitative results which generally do not exist when studying a social construct such as gender. Whilst this essay will still be analysing quantitative data such as the BBC’s gender pay gap figures, it will look to focus on the experiences of BBC employees such as those of the women

expressed in the “Making the BBC a great workplace for women” (BBC, 2020) article. The symbolic perspective was chosen over the contemporary perspective as the contemporary perspective is concerned with challenging the image that an organisation is presenting of itself (Boje, 1995), not focusing on social constructs like gender or on the experiences of individuals. It could be argued that it would be very difficult for the BBC to present an image of the organisation that is untrue, as it is a large and public company. Also, some of its employees are celebrities who can be very vocal when conflicts within the organisation arise. This essay will be wary of the issues adopting the symbolic perspective can create. According to Hatch (2018), the symbolic perspectives’ focus on experiences and qualitative research can lead to overgeneralization, which occurs when broad conclusions are based on a small sample of data. This is a danger because qualitative data, even for a company as large and public as the BBC, is relatively rare, as qualitative research is intensive and demanding. However, many of the issues which the symbolic perspective raises are also faced by both the contemporary and modernist perspectives. The risk of bias can never be completely removed from qualitative research any more than measurement error can be eliminated from quantitative studies. Also, conclusions based on quantitative data are open to bias as they also involve interpretation (Hatch, 2018). For these reasons, the symbolic perspective has been determined the most suitable perspective to adopt for the theme and organisation. The following section will be a critical literature review on the gender pay gap.

The BBC is not unique in having a gender pay gap issue. According to the Office for National Statistics the gender pay gap in the UK currently stands at 15.5%, down from 17.4% in 2019 (Smith, 2020). As a result, there is a large body of work seeking to ascertain what the main factors causing this phenomenon are. Joan Acker, one of the leading analysts regarding gender, identified five practices and processes within organisations which produce gender inequalities (Acker, 2006). The first was the organisation of the general requirements for

work. Acker theorised that in general, work is organised on the image of a man who is totally dedicated to his work and has no childcare responsibilities. As women tend to have more obligations outside of work than men, women find it harder to meet these demands thus leading to women struggling to work their way up organisational hierarchies. The next practice identified was the organisation of the hierarchies themselves. Acker posited that traditional female roles such as clerical work, despite being skilled, had been categorised as low-paid jobs intentionally by organisations to reproduce existing gender inequalities. A further practice identified was recruitment. Acker suggested that from the perspective of employers, the gender of existing jobholders at least partially defines who is suitable for the role. This leads to traditionally high-paid male roles being more likely to be filled by males. Acker then identified the practice of wage setting. Acker proposed that gender affected assumptions about skill, responsibility, and a fair wage for jobs and workers, helping to produce wage differences. Many other studies further affirm that gender impacts upon the perception of employees’ deservingness (Figart, Mutari, and Power 2002; Simpson, Kumra, Lewis & Rumens, 2020). The final practice Acker identifies is informal interactions while “doing the work.”. Acker suggested that men devalue and exclude women by, for example, not listening to them in meetings, by not inviting them to join group outings for a drink after work, and by not seeking their opinions on workplace problems. This creates a distance between the men and women and leads to men forming relationships with other men who are then more likely to help them up the organisational hierarchies. This theme of women finding it harder to move up hierarchies is prevalent in the literature. Brewis and Linstead (2009) suggest that the historically influential definition of women as somehow irrevocably feminine, congenitally subordinate, emotional, and irrational, means they are perceived as ill- equipped for work at the top of the organisational ‘tree’. Acker (2006) and Brewis and Linstead (2009) provide influential theories, and their work is supported by many other

researchers and by data such as the image in Appendix A, which illustrates the under representation of women across senior positions in the UK. Their theories however are not without flaw. Their research was published over 10 years ago. Since then, society has changed, and more women have become career-orientated and men have taken more responsibility for childcare. Both the articles identified practices which make it harder for women to rise organisational hierarchies, making higher paid roles less accessible to women and thus creating a gender pay gap. This issue has been highlighted in other studies (Bishu & Alkadry, 2017). These studies take somewhat of a modernist perspective and do not consider the experiences of women such as Carrie Gracie, the BBC’s former China editor, who despite climbing the organisational hierarchy still found herself being paid less than men in similar roles. The criticism may be that these studies are taking an over-simplified view of the factors causing the gender pay gap. However, this issue of women finding it harder to rise organisational hierarchies, is experienced by many women, as illustrated in Appendix A. It has also been argued that the gender pay gap is not due to discrimination and there may be legitimate reasons behind it. The Institute for Economic Affairs argued “If women are paid less than men, why not make some men redundant and only employ women, thus increasing profits? One would expect this process to lead to a reduction in the pay gap – indeed the process could go on until the gap was eliminated. If there really is a pay gap between men and women caused by discrimination, then shareholders will pay a heavy price.” (TUC, 2008). It could be argued however that this line of reasoning lacks depth and does not consider that the discrimination that women experience may be unconscious and due to deeply held perceptions of women which lead to them being perceived as unsuitable for senior roles. The next section will provide an analysis of the BBC’s practices and behaviours in relation to the gender pay gap.

In July 2017, the BBC published its annual report. The report revealed that the BBC’s

highest earner was Chris Evans, who made between £2.2m and £2.25m in 2016/17, while Claudia Winkleman was the highest-paid female celebrity, earning between £450,000 and

£500,000. The report went on to reveal that about two-thirds of stars earning more than

£150,000, and all of the top seven earners, were male (BBC, 2017). The image in Appendix B illustrates the gender pay gap in the BBC stars’ pay. This controversy illuminated the fact that men working across all roles at the BBC earned an average of 9.3% more than women, showing that the issue was not confined only to stars. The first practice Acker (2006) identified which the BBC may be guilty of is, organising the general requirements for work in a way which would lead to a gender pay gap. The BBC has a flexible working policy. This policy states that “The BBC is committed to agreeing flexible working arrangements, provided that the needs and objectives of both the organisation and the employee can be met.”. The policy gives employees the option of part-time working, term-time working, flexitime, remote working, job sharing, career breaks and more if practical for their role (BBC, 2018). It appears to be a cutting-edge flexible working policy which would help to alleviate the impact of issues such as women having more out of work obligations. Along with this, the BBC has a Parental and Carers Support Policy. This states that “The BBC is committed to supporting employees when they become carers, parents or take on parental responsibility for a child.”. This policy gives BBC employees the right to maternity leave and pay, adoption leave and pay, shared parental leave and pay, paternity leave and pay, foster leave and pay, and more (BBC, 2019). Yet again this policy appears to be very progressive and should make obstacles such as maternity leave as small as possible for women aiming to climb the organisational hierarchy. However, a series of workforce consultation workshops in BBC locations across the UK in which 5,000 ideas and comments were received from over 800 employees found that these policies may not be being used effectively. Regarding flexible working, the workshops found that employees felt working part-time may have a

significant and negative impact on career progression. They reported that their commitment to work was questioned, that it appeared to indicate a lack of interest in continuing to progress and led to being overlooked for opportunities (BBC, 2020). Regarding parental leave a range of experiences were offered, including: a lack of information; a lack of understanding and care from line managers and colleagues; and a lack of knowledge around policy. Many identified feeling cut off and excluded whilst on maternity leave and others talked about having no access to IT systems leaving them without access to policy information and the internal Careers Hub. Employees returning to work reported feeling unsupported, deskilled, lacking in confidence, and “thrown in at the deep end” (BBC, 2020). Based on these experiences, it appears that whilst the BBC has leading-edge policies and procedures in place to provide a platform for women to make their way up their organisational hierarchy whilst having children, this is not the case in reality and the BBC’s has created a culture in which making use of flexible working left employees feeling like it had a negative effect on their career progression and utilising the company’s parental leave left employee’s feeling out of the loop and unsupported when they returned to work. These feelings are echoed by many women in other organisations (Guardian, 2015; Kenyon, 2016). The experience of these employees is also reflected in the quantitative data at the BBC. Only 13% of BBC employees are on reduced hours contracts and this falls to 9% in leadership roles and even further in senior management roles, 2.3%. Also, almost one third of women have left the BBC following their maternity leave since 2014, with 10% leaving during maternity, 14% within 12 months and 7% after one year (BBC, 2020). The next practice Acker identified effecting the gender pay gap is the BBC’s recruitment process. The experience of women at the BBC differs from the discrimination Acker recognized. It was suggested that women felt “intimidated” by the BBC’s processes and lacked trust in a fair outcome, creating a significant obstacle to the main route of career progression in the BBC,

either laterally or upwards. Recruitment was felt to be one-way, heavily reliant upon competency-based interviews which are felt to penalise part-time workers or women who have taken extended leave around children (BBC, 2020). It could be argued however that competency-based interviews are very common practice. They can give an employer an almost live view into the candidate’s particular skillsets, achievements, and experience. They help use situations to paint a more vivid picture for the interviewer to assess synergies which would help decipher if a candidate is suitable or qualified for the role on offer. Neither of these practices come to explain how the situation with Carrie Gracie and many other female BBC stars occurred however, as these women were able to rise the organisational hierarchy but still found themselves being paid less than men in similar roles. One of the practices which may have caused this was that the BBC stars’ pay being negotiable. According to research by Artz, Goodall, and Oswald (2018), despite women asking for pay rises just as often as men they are less likely to receive one. Other studies have suggested that this may be because women act less assertively in negotiations for fear of upsetting the relationship with their boss or colleagues (Amanatullah and Morris, 2010). Regardless of the reason, women generally are at a disadvantage when salaries are negotiable. According to Palmer (2020) the BBC also did not have a clear and transparent way of determining pay. In the case of Samira Ahmed, the BBC argued that although she presented a very similar show to Jeremy Vine, he deserved to be paid almost seven times more per episode of his show “Points of View” than she did of her show “Newswatch”. The BBC said that Vine’s show included humour and required a “glint in the eye”, for which extra skill and experience was necessary. This “glint in the eye” quality the BBC spoke of is very subjective and difficult to put a value on and leaves the BBC open to gender discrimination cases like Samira Ahmed’s, which she won. It could be argued however that due to the nature of the business the BBC is in, entertainment, salaries of stars may well have to be determined on a subjective basis as what is entertaining

or what value a presenter brings to a show is by its nature subjective. However, the gap between male and female stars pay at the BBC is substantial and would therefore suggest that there are significantly more entertaining men than women, which is very unlikely to be the case.

In conclusion, the analysis of the BBC’s practices and behaviours regarding gender discrimination leading to their gender pay gap demonstrates that the organisation has three main practices which could be improved to address their gender pay gap issue. Firstly, whilst the BBC has very advanced flexible working and parental leave policies their corporate culture is not allowing these policies to be used effectively. This essay would recommend the best way to address this issue would be to build a supportive environment, recognising the help that women need to balance career and home. Also, the BBC should provide support for people taking extended leave to care for family and improve the experience for people when they return to work. This would be done by training managers to ensure that they understand the policies and are equipped to provide support to employees. The next practice the analysis identified was the recruitment process. It was felt that the recruitment process was intimidating and relied too heavily on competency-based interviews which discriminated against part-time workers or women who had taken extended leave around children. This essay recommends that this could be addressed through multiple approaches: the use of language in adverts could be changed to attract more women to apply; assessing “potential” in interview assessments; and slowing down the recruitment process to maximize applications from women. The BBC could also delay closing their job adverts until there is appropriate gender representation on interview shortlists or enforce a mandatory 50/50 gender split for shortlists. Finally, this essay has identified that the BBC does not have a clear and transparent way of determining their stars’ pay and that pay was negotiable. This essay recommends introducing a transparent and consistent process for evaluating and determining

pay for its on-air talent. This could be done through a pay band structure, which many companies operate, which would be based on experience and viewing figures. These recommendations could increase the BBC’s time to hire and may lead to the BBC potentially losing stars to its commercial rivals. However, if the BBC continues to operate with its current practices and behaviours it may see women continuing to leave the organisation, leading to the BBC missing out on the positives that come with a diverse workforce including greater choice of skilled workers, improved innovation and creativity, higher workforce productivity, and healthier financial performance (WISE, 2020). In addition, the BBC will leave itself open to further gender discrimination cases, with the attendant reputational and financial risks.