5 Learnings Leading a Global Gender Equality Initiative

Over the past year, I’ve had the privilege of leading “Target Gender Equality” an accelerator initiative of the United Nations Global Compact that supports companies in setting and meeting ambitious targets for women’s representation and leadership. The programme is implemented by Global Compact Local Networks in over 40 countries and I’ve had the opportunity of facilitating workshops with groups of companies all around the world (virtually, of course).

What we continuously preach is that while Target Gender Equality is a global initiative, key to success lies in localizing these conversations and adapting them to differing legislation, cultures and daily realities of women on the ground. In practice this means that some discussions and priorities shift, but I’ve noticed five topics that constantly come up – regardless of if I’m speaking to companies in Brazil, Croatia, Nigeria or Sri Lanka:  

1.    How to implement flexible practices in all industries

If you type “work” or “workplace” into google images it’s a very, very long scroll until you find a picture that’s not an office setting with people in suits typing away or pointing at charts in fancy meeting rooms. However, the reality is that workplaces are a lot more diverse than google might have us think. There are female employees on factory floors, construction sites, farms, in the lab, behind the wheel or on cargo ships. So when we talk about virtual and remote work, we’re only offering a solution for a tiny fraction of workplaces out there. Instead, let’s also amplify good practices from all industries where working from your couch at home is not an option. Some of these might be fairly simple such as more flexibility in shift-swapping, advance schedule notification and starting regular reality checks with employees on what type of flexibility practices they’d like to see implemented. Data from the 3.500+ companies that completed our WEPs Gender Gap Analysis Tool shows that less than 30% of companies consult with employees if practices meet their needs.

2.    How to offer employer-sponsored childcare

What’s also become clear throughout the pandemic is that work-from-home flexibility does not automatically translate to support for working parents. In the US, Almost half of working mothers said they took unpaid sick leave – or quit their jobs – because their child’s school or daycare was closed. Even before the pandemic, women around the world spent four times more time on unpaid care work than men. Companies cannot be expected to solve all childcare needs, and many tell us that investing in childcare is an overwhelming endeavour.  In fact, only 11% of our WEPs Tool users indicate to offer on-site childcare facilities or provide childcare subsidies or referrals for off-site care.

The good news is that the companies that have invested in childcare and dealt with it as strategic business decisions have seen manifold returns on investment such as improvements in employee retention, productivity, job satisfaction and loyalty. What’s gonna vary is the type and extent of childcare support that your company can/should offer, that best suits the needs of the workforce, complies with applicable law and meets business objectives. Through Target Gender Equality we are making a clear call to action to start conversations to make this essential investment.

3.    How to engage men and tackle stereotypes in macho cultures

A study showed that when gender diversity efforts had men actively involved, 96% reported progress, whereas only 30% reported progress when men were not involved. Sounds great, but the question that continuously comes up is how do you actually engage men that might fear that they’re losing out on their deserved promotion? And how do you even start that conversation if nine out of ten employees are male? What we and many of our partners always preach is to engage men as role models from the very beginning (plugging some awesome HeForShe resources here), and communicate transparently the benefits that the new focus will bring to all genders such as flexible policies for working parents. And here our WEPs Gender Gap Analysis Tool shows that there’s quite a lot of room for improvement. As 75% of companies globally indicate to offer and support paid paternity leave. But only 47% track how many men actually take leave and only 16% provide incentives to men to do so.

4.    How to tackle sexual harassment and gender-based violence

Throughout Target Gender Equality workshops, harassment and violence against women is continuously being named as one of the core barriers holding women back from progressing in the workplace or forcing them to drop out of the workforce completely. It’s thus not surprising that many companies after the programme ends indicate that they want to scale up action in this area – from both the victims’ and perpetrators’ sides (here’s a really insightful resource around the latter). However, the entry points vary quite a bit from region to region. Some are focusing on making the way to work safer through transportation support systems, especially for early morning, evening and night shifts. Others are increasing confidential support for victims of domestic violence – an area that the pandemic has shown to clearly be a part of the “world of work”. Other actions entail trainings, making grievance and resolution mechanisms more accessible, and investing in data collection – as once again our WEPs Tool shows that less than half of companies track grievances related to workplace violence disaggregated by sex. Fact is, that this issue must be tackled holistically from all angles in order to turn “zero tolerance” policies from paper to practice.

5.    How to ensure accountability across all efforts

Last but definitely not least: accountability. One of the UN Global Compact’s latest data deep dives on gender equality, diversity and inclusion very unsurprisingly revealed that only 42% of companies surveyed globally say they have taken action to ensure their leadership is accountable to diversity and inclusion targets; and only 38% of companies have publicly announced such targets. What we’re discussing in Target Gender Equality is how to build in the right KPIs and mechanisms from the very beginning into every piece of your gender equality efforts. In practice, this brings up the questions of how do you ensure a D&I Council has clear responsibility and doesn’t just organize events for the sake of awareness raising? How can a mentorship programme go beyond fun networking and truly link up to targets for women’s leadership? How can global targets reflect gender equality across i) every business department beyond marketing, legal or HR departments that tend to have higher female workforces already and ii) not only reflect progress globally but simultaneously in every country of operation?

To not end this piece in a way I usually dislike – with lots of questions – let me share what motivates me stemming from Target Gender Equality. It’s too early to boldly state that our efforts are leading to lasting impact, but the big picture shows that the majority of companies are setting targets backed up by holistic action plans. But the most encouraging part are individual stories from participating companies: such as a Bangladeshi company now launching its childcare facility which will make the daily lives of thousands of women easier; or an induvial male employee from a very different (and traditionally very male-dominated) department than the ones I’ve been in touch with asking me how he can effectively be a male ally for gender equality. The initiative is now at full speed in its second Round with capacity-building workshops kicking off around the world. I expect the above five trends to keep reoccurring and will report back soon with further solutions worth scaling.