Companies wanting to make immediate in-roads into sustainability and smash their key UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) don’t need to look far. The fastest road to impact lies with raising up the women in your workforce.
Empowering female employees and seriously pursuing gender equality in the workplace is one of the most powerful drivers of sustainability and progress, not just at work but also worldwide.
Advancements in gender equality have been backsliding since COVID-19. During the pandemic, women were more likely to be furloughed and suffer job losses, up to 19% more at risk than men due to disproportionate representation in affected sectors.
Globally, female job loss rates due to COVID-19 have been 1.8 times higher than male job loss rates, at 5.7% versus 3.1% (Source: McKinsey). Taking action now to advance gender equality could add US$13 trillion to global GDP by 2030, compared with a gender-regressive scenario.
Globally, women still only earn 82 cents for every dollar earned by men. Denying women access to their full economic potential has a negative trickle-down effect on societies as a whole. When women have jobs, they invest as much as 90% of their earnings back into their families, compared to men, who reinvest only 35%.
Professor Linda Scott, author of The Double X Economy: The Epic Potential of Women’s Empowerment, highlights that women spending money on improving household welfare builds and sustains the middle class, strengthening countries in the process. In addition to empowering women to invest in households, communities and society, ensuring women are more generally empowered in the workplace increases an organisation’s productivity, innovation and profit.
Last year, Entrepreneur magazine found that businesses that employ gender equality practices reported increased profitability and productivity. Top-tier employees are also more likely to stay in diverse and equitable organisations, which helps eliminate employee turnover.
So what can be done?
- Provide flexible working: Shift to a 'performance' rather than (desk) 'presence' company culture.
- Equal pay: Review salaries and standardise pay.
- Support women in leadership roles: Implement mentor schemes that help women overcome obstacles to senior levels.
- Diversify your board: Actively choose diverse members with different backgrounds; eliminate ‘older male white’ stereotypes.
- Increase the visibility of women in the organisation: Offer opportunities for talks, women-led workshops and demonstrate female visibility in your social media communications.
- Train on unconscious bias: Hold workshops, address sexist culture and eliminate gendered language from job adverts.
- Be courageous, and lead by example.
Do you have something to say about this?
At Bwritr, we are experienced at producing internal communications and supporting companies as they communicate their growing gender equality initiatives. Ask us how to develop an internal communications campaign and showcase your efforts in articles for social media and across your internal platforms.
