Building workplaces that support, champion and develop women is not a quick fix, and to be truly effective it needs to be woven into the culture of the company, embedded in policy that matters and practice that actually happens. And it should be guided by what our employees really want and what they really need.

Following conversations with individuals sharing their lived experiences, holding focus groups and benchmarking ourselves against the industry (and other industries), in late 2023 we realised there were some gaps in what our people valued versus what we offered at Lucky Generals, and that kick-started our journey to creating a roster of truly employee-led policies.

Fertility at work is still a taboo topic yet infertility affects 1/7 couples in the UK, and considering that stat, it has unsurprisingly been a challenge for some of our Generals. So we took action and introduced a Fertility Policy offering paid time off and a new gender-inclusive Fertility Fund to try and best support anyone struggling. When chatting with a General about their own fertility journey, they shared that taking medication at work, including injections that need to be refrigerated, was one of most anxiety-inducing parts of their experience (no one wants to store their medicine next to someone’s sandwich), and so we bought a dedicated medication fridge for the office.

Another time, when chatting with a General who shared that they were suffering from symptoms of endometriosis, I learned that 1/10 women in the UK suffer from the condition, but reportedly 33% of women and a whopping 74% of men don’t know what it is. And this casual water-cooler moment opened the door to what more we could do at Luckies to destigmatise female health at work.

We’re really proud of the work we’ve done in this space but bringing in change isn’t without its challenges, and we certainly faced hurdles that we had to overcome before launching our policies with our people.

My top 3 learnings, or tips for anyone trying to revamp their employee manual this year, would be:

1. Drop the jargon - after my first draft prompted more questions than it answered, I quickly learned that some of the legal language I was using was too heavy, too corporate, and wouldn’t resonate with the people it was designed to serve. So, we made sure we edited any policy into language that people could digest and understand.
2. An inclusive policy should use inclusive wording. This year’s IWD theme is Inspire Inclusion, and it's a common oversight to only consider hetero or cis women when writing policy and is something we educated ourselves on along the way. For example, using terminology like ‘Pregnant Parent’ as an addition/alternative to ‘Maternity’ is a small tweak, but will openly include anyone who may have previously felt that term and that policy might not apply to them.
3. Shout about it - I’ll admit that policy chat isn’t the sexiest of topics, and I’ve sent plenty of emails with updates that have gone unread. But if people don’t know they exist, then what’s the point? Train your managers up on the new policies, get people in a room and share all the good stuff you’ve done and how it’s going to impact them positively. Take all the questions that are chucked at you, as well as the suggestions, because we can always get better.

Above all, make it commonplace to discuss progressive policy, encourage open conversation on challenges that women face at work and how we can take action to make things better all year round, not just on one day in March.