Leaders at great workplaces recognize the importance of building a For All™ culture to maximize human potential, which in turn enables their businesses to remain agile and competitive amidst the fast-paced and challenging macro environment. They establish a foundation of trust based on equitable workplace practices that take into account the varied lived experiences of their employees. This includes supporting people processes, such as hiring and facilitating development, being accountable to other leaders, and standing firm on promoting inclusion, equity and leveraging the value of diversity.
So how do these workplaces cast a wide net to unleash and maximize human potential?
They are intentional in the following leadership practices and behaviors:
- Ensuring equity
Leaders are accountable to ensure equity in all business and people processes. People processes cover the different aspects of an employee’s experience in equitable hiring, pay, promotions, and allocation of development and coaching resources. - Building belonging
This refers to intentional efforts in the company’s practices that target different people and their unique needs, while making each employee feel valued and central in the company’s culture. - Understanding value and use of the uniqueness
This is when a company understands and values what makes individuals unique, finding ways to meet those unique needs and leveraging unique experiences and talents for the betterment of the business. - For All leader
Great workplaces intentionally establish systems to hire, develop and hold accountable a range of great leaders, and being able to express a clear stance on what a For All leader means in their organization.
How can organizations enable gender equity in the workplace?
- Establish recruitment practices to mitigate gender bias, and give opportunities to non-traditional sources of talent
- Build belonging, leverage employee networks and develop resources to support women’s life/career stage needs
- Implement flexible work arrangements and related policies and practices that support work-life needs
- Facilitate the development and career progression of women talent
- Train managers to be For All leaders
- Support victims of gender-based domestic violence
- Address the gender pay gap and work towards gender pay equity
- Crack the gender code at an industry level
How can individuals support gender equity in the workplace?
- Listen more than you speak: For example, in meetings, ensure that everybody has sufficient opportunities to speak, that nobody is talked over or consistently interrupted, and that credit goes to the originator of a good point.
- Coach and mentor women: Being in a leadership position offers the incumbent a means and the power to coach and mentor others. Both men and women leaders have the chance to step up and make an impact.
- Speak up when women are excluded or overlooked at the workplace.
- Avoid the merit trap: Individuals can check their personal assumptions and reflect on their use of ‘merit’ to ensure that decisions being made are not influenced by their biases or based on unspoken rules governed by masculine defaults.
- Be a Champion for Change in the broader community: Both men and women leaders can be champions of change within their networks and respective spheres of influence. They can increase opportunities for female participation in the workforce, facilitate women in leadership positions, and drive organization-wide gender strategies such as pay equity.
- Step out of the comfort zone: Women who are keen to be part of the leadership pipeline can take the initiative by consciously stepping out of their comfort zones to proactively develop their professional expertise, build their profiles and persona as subject matter experts and create more visibility by speaking at conferences.
Enabling gender equity is not a one-off effort
Beyond IWD 2023, beyond ensuring equity for women, progressive workplaces continually work to create an ecosystem of equity: they ensure that women (and all other groups of employees) enjoy equity in representation, equity in opportunities, equity in compensation and equity in well-being.
Building a supportive culture that sustains and reinforces these efforts requires individual leaders and employees at every level within the organization to step-up and support their women colleagues, in both small and big ways, through their day-to-day actions and behaviors. Individuals can also play a part to extend their impact beyond their workplaces, by adding their voices to the wider community and advocate for both gender equity and equality at an industry and/or the national level.
Together we can work towards building great workplaces that are better for business, better for people, and better for the world. Together, we can #EmbraceEquity for IWD 2023 and beyond.
Click to read the full IWD 2023 Report on how organizations and individuals can enable and support gender equity in the workplace.
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