Events Calendar

Booking for this WISE event is now closed. The next WISE member event is on 19 November, find out more by clicking here

Kindly hosted by Atkins, this knowledge sharing event is for WISE members at Core level and above.

Women retraining or returning to a STEM Career after a significant career break or time to raise a family can offer employers a unique pool of experienced talent. Speakers from a variety of companies will come together to talk about why they set up their programmes, how they have been received and share what results they have seen from the course, both from the perspective of the women and the company.

Find out more about the possibilities for companies to recruit, develop and retain the best available talent, and enable highly qualified and experienced candidates to re-start their career.  The event will also include roundtable discussions and a networking lunch.

Speakers include:

Carla Welsh, Senior Manager – Inclusion and Diversity, Lloyds Banking Group
Carla Welsh is a Senior Manager in the Lloyds Banking Group Responsible Business and Inclusion team. One of the key areas of her role is the delivery of the Group strategy around gender diversity. Prior to this, Carla helped leadership roles in Resourcing for Lloyds Banking Group, RSA Insurance and also AXA where her key focus has been leadership hiring.

Presentation summary:
– Why Returners are important to us
– The challenging market
– Results of our attraction/advertising campaign
– Why we think it worked
– How we going to ensure success
– Our plans for 2020

Professor Susan Harkness, University of Bristol
Susan Harkness is a Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Centre for Poverty and Social Justice at the University of Bristol, and visiting professor at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, London School of Economics. Her research focuses on the relationship between gender and family structure and labour market outcomes, poverty and inequality. Current projects include those funded by NORFACE, the Government Equalities Office and the Low Pay Commission.

Presentation summary
We examine the employment trajectories of new mothers and fathers up to five years after childbirth. Using eight years of longitudinal data from the UK Household Londitudinal Survey (UKHLS) for 2009/10-2017/18, and sequence and cluster analysis we produce a rich descriptive picture of the typical employment pathways followed after birth. Transitions between inactivity, unemployment, maternity leave, part-time and full-time work are considered. We also examine ‘occupational upgrading’ and ‘downgrading’ in the years after birth. We predict that the difficulty of combining work and family life will vary across job and family types. We assess how these characteristics, observed prior to birth, influence patterns of return. For employment, we examine the role of e.g. sector, industry and working hours on patterns of return. The family characteristics considered are parity and marital status. The findings illustrate stark differences in male and female work trajectories in the years following birth, with men moving closer to the labour market while women withdraw further over time. Job characteristics, observed in the year before birth, matter for women’s – but not men’s – patterns of return and career progression.

Booking for this webinar will close at 11.30am on Tuesday 19 November. A recording will be available in the Ten Steps area of the website post-event. 

Following on from this year’s Ten Steps signatory event hosted by Lloyds Banking Group, Senior Products and Services Manager Dr Clair Collins will highlight and discuss areas of the post-event report.

The webinar will cover:

• A summary of the data from the 2019 event
• A recap of how the signatories are progressing
• A look at the recurring issues faced by signatories
• Best practice opportunities, case studies and highlighting new signatories