This year’s theme for International Women’s Day, #InspireInclusion, reminds companies that whilst working towards removing the gender pay gap is critical, there are many other changes that are critical to making the workplace a comfortable and inviting environment for women. Intelligent CXO spoke to seven female professionals about the processes organisations can implement to help provide a sense of belonging, relevance and empowerment.
Despite mandatory requirements to report gender pay gaps annually, many UK companies are yet to make any distinguishable progress towards equality, with 79.5% still disclosing that men are paid more than women.
Whilst this figure is alarming in itself, there are also other worrying ‘gaps’ affecting women in the workplace. A lack of participation, promotions and C-suite representation, paired with poor attitudes around periods, menopause, parental leave and flexible working, all contribute to a culture that feels non-inclusive for female employees.
Inspiring diversity from recruitment to development
Where recruitment is centred around getting the most suitable candidate into a role, time constraints and uncertainty around what makes a candidate ‘suitable’ cause accidental bias to creep in. To avoid this, organisations need to embed more inclusive practices into their recruitment process.
To ensure fairness within recruitment and development, organisations can implement several different practices. Caroline Seymour, VP of Product Marketing at Zerto, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, explained: “Employers should make sure that they understand gender-balance data in their company, create gender-neutral job descriptions, ensure women are part of the interviewing team, ensure that interview rounds include diverse candidates, conduct regular pay equity reviews to attract and retain candidates, offer mentorship and advancement programmes and lastly regularly evaluate hiring and promotion processes to eliminate bias.”
Implementing any of these equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) processes is essential to ensure the maximum potential is achieved by every employee. Imogen Ganjou, Marketing Executive at Aqilla, agreed and added: “During my time at Aqilla, I’ve witnessed firsthand the critical role diversity and inclusion play in driving innovation and business growth. Women bring unique perspectives and skills to the table, enriching the development and marketing of exceptional products such as Aqilla. The diverse voices and experiences of individuals from various cultures and genders serve as the foundation for generating new ideas and overcoming challenges.”
To make this possible, Dawn Broadbent, Sales Director – Account Manager at Tax Systems, suggested that: “Leaders need to adopt a style that allows people the opportunity to speak up, give an opinion and ask for things that they need to push themselves to their highest potential. Equality is about being treated fairly and everyone’s ideas being brought to the table (or virtual table!).”
When it comes to increasing the number of women in the workplace, however, it is not enough to simply boost raw recruitment figures. Organisations must also ensure women feel seen, supported and equally as encouraged as men.
Training and opportunities
Whilst most organisations understand the importance of offering training and workshops to all employees, many overlook the vitality of encouragement and internal education within the organisation.
Kayla Underkoffler, Lead Security Technologist at HackerOne, summarised: “One of the main barriers for women in tech is the lack of structured, work-sponsored opportunities to learn and excel. The best way to learn a skill and make it stick is to perform the work daily, and just going through an outside-of-work training programme only gets someone halfway there.”
However, balancing meaningful training opportunities with business-as-usual operations is not the simplest of tasks. It is easy to get lost in the day-to-day requirements of the job, but companies risk losing female talent if they feel limited and there is no route to progress.
Furthermore, female employees need more female role models. This isn’t only limited to leaders to be mentored by and learn from, but also recognising more junior employees’ success and encouraging them to champion the next generation.
Anaïs Urlichs, Developer Advocate at Aqua Security, explained: “So many amazing women are out there demonstrating their skills and passions, and we should all be sharing and celebrating their work. Seeing other women succeed really can make all the difference.”
“I would love to see more women in senior roles, as the number of women in higher positions has remained largely the same over the past two decades,” said Caroline Mantle, Strategic Alliance Manager at Six Degrees. “While I have been lucky to encounter some strong female mentors in my career, reflecting back, I may have taken a different path if I’d had the right encouragement, role models and opportunities at the beginning of my career.”
Family-friendly flexibility
Organisations also need to develop more family-friendly policies, such as parental leave, childcare support and encouraging an inclusive approach to parenthood with flexible working.
Tax Systems’ Broadbent said: “When life events impact an employee, organisations need to be flexible to accommodate interruptions in performance and encourage and guide them to success. A key example of this is maternity leavers or people who deliver care to others outside of the workplace. Employers that adopt an accommodating approach often see the payback and commitment of their employees.
“I personally love to see how the dynamic of remote working has created balance between working families, enabling both parents to be accessible to their children and to create better and more flexible working patterns.”
Speaking about HackerOne’s policies, Underkoffler highlights that she is “grateful for HackerOne’s support of employees with families. Never once did I question my ability to continue to grow my career after starting my family. That support will make all the difference for many women being able to reach leadership roles or even highly technical subject matter expert roles.”
Promotions based on merit
One thing that is clear from the continued gender pay gap divide is that organisations still have a long way to go in improving equality in terms of personal development and promotions. In fact, a new report by Russell Reynolds Associates revealed that despite a record number of women being appointed to CEO roles globally, achieving gender parity at the highest levels of corporate leadership is still a distant goal, with an estimated timeline of 81 years.
To supersede this established gender bias, organisations need to establish new performance evaluation criteria and support women better, especially those who have needed to take career breaks when taking on parental responsibilities.
“In fast-changing fields, prolonged absence can lead women to fall behind through no fault of their own,” said Hana Rizvić, Head of AI at Intellias. “I advocate for companies to provide ample support for women upon their return, offering opportunities for learning and catching up to mitigate the impact on their advancement and promotions.”
She concluded: “There needs to be greater opportunities and support for women to excel. This includes increased representation in leadership and technical roles, closing the gender pay gap, fostering inclusive work environments with mentorship and flexibility, encouraging girls and women and recognising and valuing diverse perspectives. By promoting these measures, we can create a more equitable and inclusive landscape, harnessing the full potential of women’s talents for innovation and progress.”