Course Module 8

Module 8 presents best practices and policies for addressing one of the most critical challenges lucrative organizations face: how to attract, hire, and retain more women. The module also focuses on gender-responsive onboarding and training, retention and employee engagement, and separation and retirement. Further, it addresses how corporate policies are foundational for increasing gender equality. The three sessions in this module focus squarely on the Engendering Industries Best Practices Framework. You should become familiar with the Best Practices Framework through active engagement in these sessions. You will have several opportunities to work with colleagues from your organization to craft interventions within specific phases of the employee life cycle, with the goal of transferring the work to your GAP. This module also addresses the costs of workplace GBV and survivor-centered approaches to prevent and respond to it.

Learn and practice applying internationally recognized best practices and policies to improve gender equality and women’s participation in the workforce, including: 

1. Best practices used to attract, recruit, and hire a more diverse talent pool and develop corporate policies that lay the foundation for gender equality. 
2. Best practices for creating gender-responsive onboarding and training activities, increasing retention and employee engagement, and using a gender lens in the processes of separation and retirement. 

• LeanIn. (n.d.). 50 Ways to Fight Bias
• Business Fights Poverty. (2019). How Businesses Can Tackle Gender-Based Violence in the World of Work
• USAID. (2023). Engendering Industries Best Practices Framework,
• with special attention on the following chapters:
  • Attraction and Talent Outreach
  • Recruiting and Hiring
  • Onboarding and Training
  • Retention and Employee Engagement
  • Separation and Retirement
  • Policies and Grievance Management
• USAID. (2023). Engendering Industries: Integrating Gender into Workplace Policies
• USAID. (2021). Engendering Industries: Setting Strategic Gender Equality Targets
• USAID. (2022). Engendering Industries: Using Surveys to Advance Workforce Gender Equality
• USAID. (2022). Engendering Industries: Survivor-Centered Approaches to Workplace Sexual Harassment and Other Forms of Gender-Based Violence
• McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.org. (2023). Women in the Workplace
• Deloitte. (2019). The Economic Costs of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
• Vodaphone. (2021). Domestic Violence and the Workplace 2021

• Take time after the module concludes to brainstorm ideas in your GAP. Carefully consider all ELC phases covered in this module. 
• Review the required readings for the next session.