I confess I am tired of hearing about how we need to increase gender equality. No duh. How do you get there? I don’t know of any magic bullet but here are my 12 suggestions. Each of these could be a separate book, let alone a separate blog.
- Increase The Gender Representation On Your Board of Directors
Where the board of a company has at least one woman on its board, it is likely to crush the competition. Unlike in the employment context, you can specifically target women for positions on the Board. No discrimination issues.
- Make Affirmative Efforts To Increase Diversity Of Applicant Pool For Leadership Positions
Where there is gender diversity on the senior leadership team, companies outperform their competitors. While we always should hire the most qualified person, we should make sure that we cast a wide net to increase the diversity of the applicant pool. For example, consider circulating to managers resumes without names. This not only will help eliminate unconscious bias relative to gender but also race, religion etc.
- Decision Making Process
Diverse teams should help to ensure that there is not conscious or unconscious gender bias in decision-making. How do you avoid the unconscious? Bring it to conscious awareness through training, discussed below.
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