Are you aware of the benefits that gender equity can bring to your organization? It increases productivity, reduces turnover, increases revenues, reduces risks… to just name a few! But how can you reach gender equity and unleash its potential?
Follow us on this journey to learn why you should prioritize gender mainstreaming in your organization and how to do it. Gender mainstreaming means integrating the gender perspective into your organization’s DNA, as well as in your strategy and operations, with the goal of fighting discrimination and promoting gender equity.
Start by reading our 9 ways to mainstream gender, which will give you an overview of the benefits of gender mainstreaming and some practical tips you can adopt. Then go to the Hall of Fame to discover some real-life examples of successful gender initiatives.
If you are hungry to learn more, and more importantly, do more, then take our Gender Mainstreaming Workshop, a 3-modules experience that will guide you throughout the creation of concrete and successful gender initiatives.
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Gender-balanced hiring
Are you having heavy imbalances in terms of gender across positions in your team?
Are you having issues hiring qualified female or male talent for leadership roles?
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WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT
Reaching gender equality in your workforce is not only good from a social perspective, but it is proven to increase your business’ innovation, productivity, and financial performance.
Look at these statistics:
- Firms with a diverse management team experience 19% higher revenues due to innovation
- 21% of women have personally experienced gender discrimination while interviewing for a job, against 5% of men
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HOW TO DO IT
A few ways to make your hiring policy more gender-inclusive and improve your business performance are…
- Use “blind CVs” that do not show a candidate’s identifying information
- Use inclusive language in job descriptions and avoid words that are particularly associated to men or women
- Ensure the diversity of the recruitment team throughout the whole recruitment process
> READ A CASE STUDY HERE <
Are you curious to learn more about how to improve your company’s performance through gender-balanced hiring? Take our course!
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Gender-balanced promotion
Are you trying to promote more women, but this proves to be difficult?
Are you having issues retaining the best female or male talent?
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WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT
Research proves that gender-balanced leadership teams deliver more innovation and better financial performance.
Look at these statistics:
- Firms with gender diversity in their leadership teams are 21% more likely to experience above average profitability
- For every 100 men promoted to manager only 85 women are promoted
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HOW TO DO IT
A few ways to promote and retain more women (or men) to ensure a gender-balanced workforce and improve your business performance are…
- Establish family-friendly practices, like parental leave, flexible time, and the option to work remotely for all employees
- Ensure the objectivity of performance evaluations with explicit criteria and processes to limit the influence of possible biases
- Provide access to mentors, sponsors and role models for both women and men
Are you curious to learn more about how to improve your organization’s performance through gender-balanced promotion and retention? Take our course!
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HR practices
Do your female employees need more flexible working arrangements, but you are not sure about the effects it will have on your business?
Are you thinking of introducing parental leave (both maternity and paternity leave), or are you still debating on the benefits of paid maternity leave?
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WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT
Introducing HR policies and practices that contribute to creating a more inclusive workplace where every employee feels valued will increase your employees’ engagement leading to higher productivity and a decrease in hiring costs.
Look at these statistics:
- Having a highly engaged workforce leads to a 17% increase in productivity and a 59% decrease in turnover
- On average, US female workers are paid 20% less than men
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HOW TO DO IT
A few ways to make your workplace more inclusive are…
- Introduce regular salary reviews and increase transparency to promote wage equity between men and women
- Introduce a paid parental leave beyond national requirements to acknowledge the unique challenges of new fathers and help equalizing the playing field between women and men
- Introduce flexible working hours, hours adjusted to the needs of your team, as well as the possibility to work remotely
> READ A CASE STUDY HERE <
Are you curious to learn more about how to increase employees’ engagement? Take our course!
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Board diversity
Is your board gender-balanced?
Are you having issues finding the right female or male candidates for your board?
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WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT
Increasing the number of women in the board improves an organization’s responsiveness to market conditions, financial performance, and risk management.
Look at these statistics:
- Diverse boards are less likely to experience “groupthink” and are more likely to try out new approaches
- 17% of public company board seats globally are held by women (2018)
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HOW TO DO IT
A few ways to increase diversity in your board are…
- Introduce mandatory public disclosure of your board diversity
- Avoid selecting candidates always from the same pool (e.g., former CEOs) and include other titles and qualifications more populated by women
Are you curious to learn more about how to make your board more gender-balanced? Take our course!
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Research and design
Are you aware of the gender split among your customers?
Do you have issues in reaching more women (or men) with your product/ service?
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WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT
Conducting gender-specific market research and taking gender into consideration while designing products and services opens up new opportunities, customer segments and helps grow sales.
Look at these statistics:
- $700 billion of additional revenues in the global financial industry could be realized by better serving women as customers
- Women are 47% more likely than men to suffer serious injuries from car crashes because cars’ safety systems are designed for and tested on men
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HOW TO DO IT
A few ways to maximize your sales by making your market research and product design more gender inclusive are…
- Collect gender disaggregated data in your market surveys
- Strive to understand your customers’ real needs and do not stop at stereotypes or pre-conceived notions
- Develop features that address specifically women’s or men’s needs in your offering
> READ A CASE STUDY HERE <
Are you curious to learn more about how to unlock new customer segments and sales opportunities? Take our course!
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Gender targeted ads
Are you struggling to reach women (or men) with your marketing campaigns?
Are you aware of potential unconscious gender stereotypes present in your advertisement?
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WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT
Designing gender targeted campaigns and representing users in non-stereotypical roles helps attract more users/ customers and fight gender stereotypes.
Look at these statistics:
- 40% of women do not relate to the way they are portrayed in ads
- 3% of advertising features women in leadership roles
- Ads with women in non-stereotypical roles perform 3.3 times better on purchase consideration and 1.3 times better on brand opinion
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HOW TO DO IT
A few ways to design non-stereotyped gender targeted campaigns are…
- Capture sex-disaggregated market data and use it to create targeted messages in your marketing campaigns
- Screening for biases in every step of the communication and promotion process
- Ensure that women and men are equally represented and shown in non-stereotypical roles in all your communication
Are you curious to learn more about how to maximize marketing outreach and effectiveness? Take our course!
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Diversity in sales
Is your sales force mostly consisting of men or women?
Are you trying to improve the performance of your sales team?
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WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT
Businesses with a gender-diverse sales force driver higher revenues and profitability.
Look at these statistics:
- Companies with sales teams made by 45% or more women show 15-times higher sales revenues than companies with less than 20% women in their sales teams
- Women are 5% more likely to close a deal than men
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HOW TO DO IT
A few ways to increase sales by increasing diversity within your sales team are…
- Reach more women by removing the unconscious gender bias from the masculine sales profession narrative in job descriptions
- Address and provide support for the unique barriers women sales agents may face (i.e., travelling, safety, etc.)
Are you curious to learn more about how to increase your sales revenues? Take our course!
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Gender-balanced customer service
Are you trying to improve your customer service?
Do you have customer feedback issues with some segments of your customers?
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WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT
Tailoring your customer service to the specific needs and preferences of men and women results in improved customer satisfaction and in an increase in repeat purchases.
Look at these statistics:
- 55% of men are willing to pay extra for better customer service, against only 36% of women
- 58% of American consumers switch to another company because of a bad customer service experience
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HOW TO DO IT
A few ways to make your customer service better tailored to the needs of female and male users and improve their satisfaction are…
- Collect and analyze customer service data disaggregated by sex to understand the preference of your customers
- Measure the trends of customer service calls disaggregated by sex (i.e., main issues/feedback per gender)
Are you curious to learn more about how to make your customer service more inclusive? Take our course!
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Diversity of suppliers
Are you aware of the gender-split among your suppliers?
Are you trying to increase the resilience of your supply chain, but do not know how?
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WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT
Diversity in the supply chain is proved to reduce risks and improve the innovation and the resilience of your operations. Promoting diversity in your supply chain also increases opportunities for economic development in local communities.
Look at these statistics:
- Farm’s yields would increase by 20-30% if women had the same access to productive resources than men
- Women fill up only 15% of formal top-level supply chain positions worldwide
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HOW TO DO IT
A few ways to promote diversity in your supply chain are…
- Include supplier diversity metrics in your existing processes and procedures
- Account for potential mobility constraints for single women suppliers by decentralizing operations
- Train to your suppliers on the importance of creating a diverse workplace
Are you curious to learn more about how to make your supply chain more resilient? Take our course!
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