{"id":92,"date":"2014-10-23T13:11:50","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T13:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/?p=92"},"modified":"2022-04-13T15:08:21","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T15:08:21","slug":"things-to-consider-for-your-athena-swan-action-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/things-to-consider-for-your-athena-swan-action-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Things to consider for your Athena SWAN Action Plan&#8230;."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For I while I thought, probably arrogantly, that getting an Athena SWAN Bronze Award shouldn&#8217;t be that difficult. I think it depends on just two things:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>An honest appraisal of the state of your\u00a0Department\u00a0&#8211; identifying the key challenges.<\/li>\n<li>An Action Plan to will seek to address these challenges in a positive way.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>However, I have come to realise that doing these two things can\u00a0be really <strong>difficult<\/strong>. Looking honestly at our Departments and ourselves can be uncomfortable. Perhaps our Head of Department or others don&#8217;t\u00a0like what they see and are unwilling to face up to it.<\/p>\n<p>Even after an honest appraisal of the problems, knowing what can be done to address challenges can also be difficult.<\/p>\n<p>To help with what can be done, I have prepared a list of ideas:<\/p>\n<p><strong>GENERAL THINGS<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>GET HELP<\/strong> \u2013 build a team within your School\u00a0and externally.<\/li>\n<li>Recruit external female advisors\/role models (someone from another School in your University. Consider someone from a similar Department in another University or your professional organisations.\u00a0These advisors could be used for high level advice, for interview panels, or as \u2018critical friends\u2019.<\/li>\n<li>Include undergraduate and post-graduate representatives at all levels of your organisation.<\/li>\n<li>Monitor your seminar programme(s) \u2013 aim for 50% female (or at least 35%).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>THINGS TO DO WITH CURRENT STAFF<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Annual <strong>Appraisal<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is it being done?<\/li>\n<li>If not, why not?<\/li>\n<li>Is promotion being discussed?<\/li>\n<li>Is flexible working being discussed?<\/li>\n<li>Is development and training being discussed?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Staff <strong>Development<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Are your staff attending development opportunities?<\/li>\n<li>If not, why not?<\/li>\n<li>Is there a gender difference?<\/li>\n<li>Do your staff have a personal development plan?<\/li>\n<li>Is it discussed in appraisal?<\/li>\n<li>Monitor engagement with E&amp;D training specifically.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Flexible Working<\/strong> Policies<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Publicise them<\/li>\n<li>Find out about informal arrangements<\/li>\n<li>Find out about formal requests and outcomes.<\/li>\n<li>Check gender breakdown.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Publicise Athena SWAN and related activities<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mentoring<\/strong> &#8211;\u00a0what\u00a0is available \u2013 formal or informal. Measure uptake and gender breakdown.<\/p>\n<p>Do you model and monitor <strong>workload<\/strong> and allocate work fairly?<\/p>\n<p>Consider <strong>promotions<\/strong> \u2013 organise workshops.<\/p>\n<p>Other ideas:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Work shadowing into senior roles<\/li>\n<li>Appoint Deputies<\/li>\n<li>How about fixed terms of office for jobs \u2013 3 to 5 years. Then rotate!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>RECRUITING STAFF<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Consider your advertising \u2013 where\/how\/wording \u2013 is your advertising aimed at an already gender biased group.<\/li>\n<li>Consider the gender breakdown of the applications \u2013 it can be improved.<\/li>\n<li>Shortlisting \u2013 how does the gender breakdown in shortlisting compare to that of applications. It should be similar. Are you evaluating the CVs in a manner that avoids bias (perhaps unconscious)<\/li>\n<li>Interviewing \u2013 your panel should include both genders. Recruit externally if necessary. Avoid unfair and unconscious bias.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>NEW STAFF<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Induction \u2013 is it being done? Are they receiving appropriate information about flexible working, promotions etc\u2026<\/li>\n<li>Probation \u2013 is it being done? Is appropriate training been given to line managers and staff.<\/li>\n<li>Mentoring \u2013 should be available from the start.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For I while I thought, probably arrogantly, that getting an Athena SWAN Bronze Award shouldn't be that difficult. I think it depends on just two things: An honest appraisal of [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athena-swan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4tWbY-1u","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/brennanpincardiff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}