The Path To Transforming Womens Place In Leadership

The Path To Transforming Womens Place In Leadership At Ellevate Network, a global professional womens network, we regularly poll our members on topics pertaining to gender parity. 89% of Ellevate Members say that gender discrimination still exists at their companies and to close the gender gap, Ellevate members are personally networking with other women (23%), beratung other women (20%), and calling out gender inequities when they see them (16%). But what can companies do to close the gender achievement gap? At Thomson Reuters recent Womens Transformative Leadership forum event, many themes emergedThe Importance of Listening53% of Ellevate Members feel they do not have a say in their companys policies and culture. Ami Kaplan, Senior lebensabschnittsgefhrte How you ask questions is very important. Being at work is a personal experience. Have open conversations with employees to define the issues. You may be surprised.Acknowledge BiasAccording to Sonya Kunkel, Chief Inclusion Officer s book Blindspot which explores hidden biases that we all carry from a lifetime of experiences with social groups. On Dr. Banajis website, Blindspot is defined as a metaphor to capture that portion of the mind that houses hidden biases. Kunkel discussed the important of talking openly about topics of bias and blindspots and the need to have consistent/known language around these topics. She stressed the need to assess bias in key moments such as interviews, reviews and team meetings.Step Outside of Your Comfort ZoneCaren Ulrich Stacy, Chief Executive Officer, Diversity Lab The mora we celebrate innovation the more comfortable people will be with innovation. Lets talk a little less and do a little more. Stacy highlighted many programs that are successfully tackling the barriers keeping women from advancing including returning to work after an extended leave (OnRamp Fellowship), women on boards (The Boardlist), women on panels (AWP), public perception of female role models (Microsoft), office face time (PowerToFly), hiring quotas (The Rooney Rule), resources for female entrepreneurs (Ellevate Network, Pipeline Angels, Springboard), bias in hiring (Blendoor), sponsorship in the workplace (Citi, Holland everyone says it is a good idea but that it wont work at their company. To see progress, we need to start thinking about how it can work at your company.Understand Your WorkforceMany of the panelists stressed the importance of evolving the business to keep pace with the changing landscape of employees. Best practices vary by generation and if businesses try to force employees to work a certain way, they miss out an an opportunity to engage with employees. For example, Sheryl Battles, Vice President, Corporate Communications at Pitney Bowes Inc. highlighted how a bercksichtigung on a face-time culture can detract focus from a results-oriented workplace. Ingrid Busson, Executive Director, Legal always on all the time can lead to employee burnout.Look at the Whole Pers onAmi Kaplan, Senior Partner Engage senior leadership with strategic priorities tied to goals. It is a journey but one where senior leaders should be held accountable. Lee Miller, Global Chair Emeritus of DLA Piper LLP echoed this as well and stressed that to embrace diversity, companies should set a plan and make it part of the corporate values. Diversity t work if you dont have a system that reinforces the values.Act. Learn. Measure. Act.Anilu Vazquez-Ubarri, Chief Diversity Officer t a one size fits all solution and each affinity group has its own breaking points. Some ideas will work and some may not so companies need the flexibility to change course and evolve their programs. As Ami Kaplan, Senior Partner Employee engagement data is important but you have to do something with it.At Ellevate, we believe that we are in the unique position to take the conversation around gender inequality from dialogue and advocacy to real change. We will continue to evolve the findings from The T homson Reuters Womens Transformative Leadership Forum and work with companies to close the gender achievement gap within their organizations.The original version of this article was published by our friends at Ellevate.Fairygodboss is committed to improving the workplace and lives of women. Join us by reviewing your employer