So what does a white male with premature gray hair like me
have to do with the topic of gender equality and women's empowerment?
Well, as we'll see gender equality is everyone's business.
Let's talk about embedding gender equality in the workplace and
what businesses can do to accelerate progress -
and stick around to the end for access to a free online diagnostic tool
that will help you assess how committed your organization is to gender equality.
gender equality and women's empowerment doesn't only concern women,
It concerns all of us. When half of society
doesn't have the same opportunities as the other half, we're clearly limiting
our potential as a society - and we're all worse off because of it.
That's why achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls
is one of the main tenets of the UN sustainable development goals -
and why it's regarded as being a critical element to achieving
sustainable development. Simply stated without gender equality
and empowerment there can be no sustainable development.
The business case is also hugely compelling.
Gender equality is associated with significant increases in national
productivity and economic growth. A recent study suggested that by
improving female participation in the workplace
across OECD countries alone could boost GDP by some 6 trillion dollars.
While closing the gender pay gap could boost GDP by 2 trillion dollars.
Not insignificant sums. And at a company level also studies
show that gender equality and empowerment can contribute to
increased performance and innovation, better decision making,
an enhanced corporate reputation and an ability to attract talent as well as
achieve higher employee satisfaction rates.
All of which contribute to a company's bottom line.
Yet despite all this, gender equality (meaning that women and men are equally
able to access and enjoy the same resources, same
opportunities, and the same rewards) remains a significant and ongoing
challenge in many companies - right up to present day. Women continue
to experience gender discrimination in recruitment, retention, promotion and
succession practices - right across the corporate spectrum from
entry-level positions to the C-suite. Women and men may enter at similar
levels, but women are less likely to be promoted and
are significantly under-represented in managerial posts
and decision-making bodies. Women continue to be
systematically paid less than men for work of equal value
where globally women earn 23 percent less than men.
Women continue to bear a disproportionate share of
unpaid care and domestic work which creates a significant barrier to gender
equality in that it limits women's capacity to
engage in paid work. And, perhaps most distressing, women
continue to face incidences of violence and sexual harassment at work.
And this represents a serious physical and psychological obstacle to
achieving gender equality. It also extorts a high cost to women in
terms of lost earnings and missed promotions and
well-being. As well as costs to companies in the
form of absenteeism and productivity losses.
Effectively addressing these issues will require that we put the proper policies
procedures and systems in place to deal with issues
of gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace.
But the scale of the issue also calls upon us to
accelerate gender equality and empowerment if there's any chance of us
meeting the SDG targets. And this will require more than
just tinkering on the sides. Companies will
have to move much more boldly and proactively to
invest in women and girls by (for example) creating and enabling
environments that eliminate gender barriers in business
transactions. This might include training on
unconscious bias for example. Using procurement as leveraging tools
to help support women positive workplaces and
women entrepreneurs within a company's supply chain.
Improving social inclusion and protection measures at work
such as allowing for flex time or extending benefits to part-time workers.
And fostering overall a supportive culture by
advocating for women and girls and and avoiding harmful and discriminatory
stereotypes of both women and men in marketing materials - and
in society more broadly. It's a fairly substantial list of
activities so where should a company start? Fortunately
the UN Global Compact together with UN Women have developed a set of global
principles - the Women's Empowerment Principles (WEPs)
which offers businesses some very useful guidance and
a bit of a road map (quite frankly) on how businesses can effectively promote
gender equality and women's empowerment in the workplace.
The guidance includes the following 7 principles
1) Establish high-level corporate leadership for
gender equality; 2) Treat all women and men fairly at work respecting
and supporting human rights and non-discrimination; 3) Ensure the health
safety and well-being of all women and men
workers; 4) Promote education and training and professional
development particularly for women; 5) Focus on enterprise development, supply
chain and marketing practices that will actually empower women;
6) Promote equality through community initiatives and advocacy;
and, 7) Measure and publicly report on progress to achieve
gender equality. Now some of these principles are
understandably a very high level. So when we were contacted recently by a
client who was interested in assessing their own
gender equality practices in their organization, we decided to create a tool
that sought to operationalize these principles and
translate them into more easily accessible business processes and
systems. The result is this gender equality and
empowerment diagnostic tool. And while it's still in a beta version,
many individuals and organizations have found it to be
quite useful to conduct their own gap analyses or their own self-assessments
in order to zero in and quickly identify areas where they can improve their
performance related to gender equality and
empowerment. You can access the tool at the address
below and I'll print it out right there, and we'll also provide a link to the
tool in the description box if you're viewing this on YouTube.
And, of course this is still a beta tool so we're also happy to have your
feedback. Making gender equality a top strategic
priority is critical to achieving the SDGs. Now
businesses can't do it alone, but they certainly have a very important role to
play in achieving gender equality and in
promoting women's empowerment in society more
generally. And when company leaders and executives affirm high-level support for
gender equality and human rights more broadly,
transformations are much more likely to take place.
Of course these commitments need to be accompanied also by
robust programs and company-wide goals and targets
for achieving gender equality and by also stewarding a shift towards a
corporate culture that both celebrates, and recognizes
the importance of equality diversity and inclusion for all.