9.3 Make gender equality, diversity, and inclusion part of the workplace culture
Content
Description of Best Practices
Introduce company values of gender equality, diversity, and inclusion during employee onboarding and throughout the rest of the employee life cycle
Include gender equality, diversity, and inclusion in company mission and values statement
Ingrain a corporate culture and leadership model harnessing diversity
Establish corporate values and practices that make everybody’s voices heard and invite women to speak up such as:
- Rules at company meetings and fora to ensure that women are encouraged to make their voices heard
- Build the expectation that meeting leaders and facilitators elicit input from quieter participants
- Ensure that meeting members demonstrate equal respect/ regard for the opinions of men and women
Upskill women with targeted talent and leadership development focused on effective communication, negotiations, and leadership skills
Challenges of Implementation
Key individuals may resist change or resist being held accountable for inclusive actions
Time required to socialize all employment processes with transformational changes and embed within orientations
Gendered social norms or habits of attributing higher value to men’s input than to women’s input persist
Backlash may result from male participants perceiving a loss of authority
What Success Looks Like
Men and women work productively and cohesively in all business areas
Corporate business goals attained with greater level of success as corporate culture changes and inclusion goals take hold
Women and men assume increasingly greater share of leadership and management positions across all areas of company
Meeting chair or facilitator manages group dynamics to afford participants equal opportunity to contribute regardless of gender or social identity; facilitator limits behavior which undermines equal participation, such as interrupting/ talking over/disregarding or undervaluing input from women
Resources and Tools
Guide: Building Gender-Inclusive Workplaces in Singapore: A Practical Guide for Companies and Human Resource Practitioners (Singapore Management University)
Guide: Four for Women: A Framework for Evaluating Companies’ Impact on the Women They Employ (Wharton School of Business)
Guide: Strategies for Chairing Gender-Inclusive Meetings (ParlAmericas)
Guide: Cultural Influencers: How to Shift and Sustain Organizational Culture (American Productivity & Quality Center)
Report/Study: Delivering Through Diversity (McKinsey & Company)
Report/Study: Tapping the Power of Inclusion and Diversity in Urban Water (Water Services Association of Australia)
Report/Study: Accelerating Progress in Gender Equity from the Inside Out (EY)
Report/Study: Quick Take: Why Diversity and Inclusion Matter (Catalyst)
Article: Why Goldman Sachs’s Push for Diversity Is Unlikely to Drive Real Change (Harvard Business Review)
Article: Creating a "Human-Friendly" Workplace (Allen Communications Learning Services)
Article: Speaking While Female (New York Times)
Article: Why Women Don’t Speak up on Zoom Calls (World Economic Forum)
Article: How to Make Your Virtual Meetings More Fair to Introverts (Fast Company)
Article: Women and Negotiation: Narrowing the Gender Gap in Negotiation (Harvard Law School Daily Blog)
Article: The Role of Gender in Team Collaboration and Performance (Interdisciplinary Science Reviews)
Article: When Gender Diversity Makes Firms More Productive (Harvard Business Review)
Article: What makes a team smarter? More women (Harvard Business Review)