A woman claims she was refused a job on the front desk of an investment bank because she was not prepared to wear a skirt and high heels.
Jo Beattie went for an interview for a temporary job working on the front desk of the Swiss bank UBS on London Liverpool Street.
At the end of the interview with Susan Hamilton, the recruitment agency working to fill the role, Ms Beattie said she was told that she would need to wear a black skirt and black high heeled shoes to work every day.
She claims the interviewer said the only instance when flats are allowed is if a candidate has a medical issue that prevents them from wearing heels.
Ms Beattie said she did not have a medical condition, but she was not prepared to wear high heels as she didn’t feel it was necessary to carry out the work.
Ms Beattie claims she was then told she would not be offered the position.
A spokesperson at Hamilton Mayday, said: “This claim is a complete misrepresentation. UBS provides uniforms for its reception staff and there is explicitly no requirement to wear heeled shoes or skirts. The interview that took place this afternoon was not completed due to the candidate leaving before all company guidelines and policies could be discussed. Therefore the consultant leading the interview did not have the opportunity to fully explain this to the candidate.’’
UBS declined to comment.
“UBS is one of the largest financial organisations in the world and for them to be insisting that their female front of house staff wear high heels and skirts is nothing short of outrageous,” Ms Beattie said.
“It is unbelievable that this kind of behaviour is still commonplace in the corporate world,” she added.
Ms Beattie’s story comes after Nicola Gavins, a waitress in Canada, posted a photo on Facebook showing a waitress’s bleeding feet after she was forced to work a shift in high heels.
The post has been shared over 12,000 times.
In a separate incident Nicola Thorpe, a London receptionist, was sent home from consultants PwC for refusing to wear shoes with a 2 to 4 inch heel.
Thorp said her job involved a nine hour shift escorting clients to meeting rooms and that she couldn’t do that in high heels.
“I said 'if you can give me a reason as to why wearing flats would impair me to do my job today, then fair enough', but they couldn't,” Ms Thorp told BBC Radio London.
Gaenor Bagley, executive board member and head of people at PwC, said the incident was “embarrassing”.
“We took immediate action with the contractor that employed Ms Thorp. Put simply, such policies don’t reflect who we are,” Bagley said.
Thorp took action herself by setting up a Change.org petition to make it illegal for a company to require women to wear high heels at work. The petition has received more than 100,000 signatures, meaning that parliament must consider it for a debate.
On Twitter, Sajid Javid, the business secretary, said: “No woman should be forced to wear high heels. Responsible employers shouldn't need the law to tell them that.”
