Investing in Women Beyond International Women's Day
Every year, the resilience and achievements of women worldwide are celebrated on International Women’s Day. This year’s theme, “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress,” prompted the usual flurry of company statements and LinkedIn posts sharing solidarity and acknowledgement that organisations have a part to play to move our society towards gender equity.
Besides being the right thing to do, it is also the smart thing; gender equity has been proven to enhance business performance, innovation, and reputation.
So, how can organisations invest in women for better equity?
We can all agree that investing in women requires ongoing commitment and actions embedded into the employee lifecycle if we are to see any sustainable progress towards gender equity. Reports like The PwC Workplace Inclusion Indicator Index (which draws on a survey of about 54,000 workers across 46 countries and territories) – reveal a persistent gender inclusion gap in the workplace, impacting women’s ability to seek promotions and develop new skills.
Hire women, pay women fairly, promote women, and celebrate women.
Hire women: To promote gender inclusion, organisations must improve their recruitment processes to remove barriers to entry into organisations and careers. At the Clear Company, we support employers to implement inclusive hiring practices and create more flexible, agile working policies that remove adverse impact for women in the workplace.
Pay women fairly and support their progression: Striving towards reducing the gender pay gap through pay equity and promotion transparency ensures fair treatment and opportunities for women at all levels. This could include conducting gender pay audits and implementing transparent pay scales, like some of clients have successfully done.
Implementing consultancy-recommended strategies by Clear Assured supported Client X to reduce their median pay gap by 40% since joining Clear Assured to 15%, compared to the average median gender pay gap of 22.4% in their sector (Financial and Insurance industry).
Providing access to mentoring, coaching, and networking opportunities are also vital for supporting women's career progression.
Create and embed inclusive policies and practices: Improving work-life balance through improvements to your policies and processes is a powerful way to support women's advancement; consider flexible work arrangements, parental leave policies and sponsorship programs to name just a few. We have also seen positive impact from setting and maintaining diversity objectives in hiring, especially in senior roles.
Leadership commitment: There must be visible leadership commitment to gender equity and diversity initiatives throughout your organisation. Leaders should feel personal responsibility to play their part in driving for a more inclusive culture. Organisations can invest in women by investing in management training to enhance inclusion skills, confidence, and inclusive leadership capabilities where this is lacking.
Measure and monitor progress: With the right strategy and actions in place to promote the advancement of women, you can set clear goals and metrics for advancing women's representation and progression within your organisation – for example, a target of 1 in 3 hires being part of an underrepresented group or a percentage target for women in senior roles. With regular assessments of these DEI metrics, employee feedback, and engagement surveys, you can track the effectiveness of actions and identify areas for improvement.
We encourage you to reflect on the words your organisation may have shared on International Women’s Day, and the promises you may have made. What concrete steps have you taken to act on them since then?
For support on reducing your gender pay gap through any of the practices explored above, please contact enquiries@theclearcompany.co.uk