One of the most critical topics in the workplace right now is gender inequality. When it comes to bridging that gap, we should always be asking if we are doing enough. A question we sometimes ask ourselves in business is, ‘are we making change for the right reasons, or are we completing a “tick the box” exercise?’. While it’s good to acknowledge how much progress has already been made, keeping our foot on the gas is essential to ensure real, lasting change.
The First Step: Recruitment
So how can your organization make certain the efforts are conscious and intentional, rather than just ‘checking boxes?’ It starts as early as recruitment and interviewing.
There are three major ways to promote gender equality in this part of the process:
- Create inclusive job descriptions to attract a diverse pool of candidates and
ensure job seekers aren’t dissuaded from applying. Remember that if a job description sounds too pointed or biased, many amazing people will simply elect not to bother applying in the first place, so this is arguably the most important place to ensure you’re promoting diversity. - Actively source gender-diverse candidates. It’s often not enough to expect historically marginalized candidates to apply, it can take active outreach and recruiting to pull them into the candidate pool. In fact, a LinkedIn study found that women apply for 20% fewer jobs than men and only apply if they feel they meet 100% of the job requirements, which ties back to the first point about job descriptions.
- Conduct unbiased interviews. Getting applicants is just the beginning, but the interviews aren’t just for employers. It’s for potential employees to determine whether they feel like the company and role is a good fit. In addition to conducting fair interviews and checking for internal biases in your organization, remember that women and non-gender-conforming folks hold very few senior and executive roles. It’s time to start actively working to fix that, but also hiring the right person for their curiosity, ambition and skills, no matter what gender, race or whatever label they or society puts on them.
Fair Pay
Once you do hire candidates — and for your existing employees, when salary conversations come around — it’s critical to ensure fair pay and benefits across the board. It’s no secret that the gender pay gap has plagued society since women entered the workforce, and there is still much room to improve. The process for determining or negotiating salaries and benefits should be transparent, unbiased, and equitable. Plus, competitive pay is a great way to attract and retain top talent. Some companies even share all their compensation with the whole team and with external people, which is very transparent and works well in some environments, not others.
Equitable Promotions
It’s a tale as old as time that often senior roles are sourced from outside rather than promoted internally. One of the best ways to improve workplace gender inequality is to not only start with the employees in your organization but to provide fair opportunities to everyone and intentionally work to get women and non-gender-conforming people into higher levels of seniority.
Culture
There are a few ways to improve the company culture to promote gender equality. First, you could create a diversity and inclusion program to continuously educate your employees and executives on the history, potential biases, and solutions around gender inequality. You could even consider hosting events that feature experts in the field to come in and speak to your organization.
Second, it’s imperative to have a strict no-tolerance policy towards discrimination and to uphold those standards in case any issue ever arises. Ensure everyone knows of their rights to a safe and equal environment, that managers know what is and isn’t appropriate, and that a conflict is taken seriously and remedied.
Third, general culture can have a huge impact. When the topic of equality is shared often and you actively build a culture around it, your employees will feel safer and more comfortable in the workplace. Everyone should feel like they belong and are equally valued.
If you’re a business owner, ask yourself – is it a tick box exercise, or are you striving for change in your business culture?
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