Chwarae Teg brought the local business community together for its inaugural FairPlay Business Network event at the Virgin Money Lounge, Cardiff, this month. The new network aims to support Welsh businesses on gender equality issues.

Latest figures show the 2018 gender pay gap in Wales is 13.5%, a lower gap than the UK average of 18%. The Welsh gender pay gap has reduced at a higher rate than the rest of the UK over the past year.

Ryan Cullen of Dev Ops Group and Chwarae Teg’s Gill Owens

Chwarae Teg works with Welsh businesses to take the lead on gender equality through its Agile Nation2 Business Programme, funded by the European Social Fund through Welsh Government. The event gave guests a taster of the specialist advice and support on offer from the programme.

Guest speaker Ryan Cullen, People Success Lead at DevOpsGroup, shared insights into how the hugely successful Cardiff-based IT business identified and addressed unconscious bias in their recruitment practices - with dramatic effects on the number of women applying and working at the company as a result.

FairPlay Employer Leading Award recipients, Control 2K Training

The event also recognised several businesses who have recently completed the Agile Nation2 programme. These included Control 2K Training, Bridgend, and Blue Water Recruitment, Nantgarw. Both organisations were awarded the ‘Leading’ Agile Nation2 Fairplay Employer award.

The FairPlay Business Network will be holding further events around Wales in 2019, plus introductory webinars on key topics.