At our latest webinar The Gender Agenda: How Organisations Are Still Missing Out On the Skills of Women, Jacqueline Frost, CEO, Elevate Talent and webinar sponsor, Jen Denby, Global Head of Inclusion and Diversity, WTW and Valerie Dale, Group Chief People Officer, OCS discussed the challenges to and positive initiatives that can help women fulfil their potential in the workplace.
Despite some progress in terms of reporting and supporting women in the workplace, there are still clear inequalities. Jacqueline explained how one particular challenge came at the mid-management level of organisations – the area where future leaders are identified and supported going forward. In this area there is almost a ‘missing rung’ for women to make the next step up.
However, it was felt that even now issues of stereotypes, what women are expected to do and bias is still playing a significant part in holding back women from fulfilling their leadership potential. Addressing this means going beyond the workplace and looking at how academic subjects and career ideas are being presented – one panelist gave the example of a female student being made to feel they were in the wrong place when they started a STEM related course.
Despite the challenges ahead, there is clearly a great deal of passion and determination to move things forward. Jacqueline highlighted the use of data in not just recording progress made by employers but to push employers further, identifying where change can be made and analysing the impact of interventions and initiatives. Progress is clearly the responsibility of both organisations and women themselves – as Val Dale noted, women need to take control and put themselves forward if they want to be able to take on more senior roles.
During the session, Jacqueline Frost highlighted a key principle: “What gets measured, gets managed.” It’s crucial to ensure that the opportunities being offered make a meaningful impact. However, collecting and organising data is a time-intensive process. Elevate Talent addresses this with the EPIC Career Self-Assessment, which provides a clear view of attendees’ progress through a ‘before and after’ comparison. The results are compiled into the comprehensive EPIC report, offering valuable insights which is available to download here: https://elevatetalent.co.uk/epic-report-sign-up/
And if you’re curious about how it works, you can take the assessment yourself and explore the questions asked throughout the process. https://elevatetalent.co.uk/epic-career-quiz/
You can catch up on the follow up Q&A from this webinar here.
The webinar is well worth a watch to understand the nature of the issues at stake and to inspire employers to do more. Tackling this issue and enabling women to reach their full potential is for the good of all organisations and the workforce in general.
