Gender equality

The figure stands at just 32% of the proportion of women in senior management roles globally.

In the UK, latest figures show that we sit at 33% of women in director level roles, and in a recent survey listed second internationally for our inclusivity across FTSE100 companies.

It’s a proven fact that having female leaders in positions of influence, serving as role models is not only critical to the career advancement of women, but stances on driving broader societal impacts on pay equity, changing workplace policies in behaviours that benefit both men and women, as well as attracting a more diverse workforce.

The need to work towards gender equality AND inclusivity across commercial operations is one that we all need to contribute to, to drive meaningful change for women across the globe.

Recently, there’s been some significant leaps in diversity at the top from the likes of M&S appointing Cheryl Potter as their non-executive director, making its boardroom a female majority, Helen Miles is Severn Trent’s new CFO and was the first FTSE100 firm to create an all-women board, Susie Wolff has been appointed the director of the F1 Academy in an unprecedented example and openly states she ‘hopes to inspire more women into sport’. While in contrast the press has reported that FIFA has been heavily criticised for the appointment of a female supermodel Adriana Lima in an ambassador role.

Germany has announced last week the introduction of the ‘feminist foreign policy’ with the aim to have more women in senior roles.

Culture and support

Ways in which you can develop diversity in your culture and support women’s growth:

• Prioritise sponsoring and mentoring for female employees.
• Listen and measure. Companies need a data-driven approach to real inclusivity
• Deliver unconscious bias training and development
• Improve policies, such as flexible working and take lessons from the pandemic
• Reduce the gender pay gap and make payment schemes fair and equal
• Be an advocate for inclusivity across the organisation

Brighter Directions are champions of women in business, and women in senior roles with many of our clients being female-run-operations, and having the honour to work on global life-changing campaigns over the past year such as new technology advances for Breast Cancer, innovative diversity campaigns for non-traditional industry clients, and currently also a challenging and emotive FGM campaign awareness across Africa. But we are also committed to our continued advocacy of women, including our unwavering support to the likes of the Women In awards globally, through to driving our own culture and inclusive operations.

So, as a final thought, let us take this opportunity to celebrate the incredible, talented women we have in our own business, who juggle everyday and still pull out all the stops to thrive… we are proud of the business we have, because of you….

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Due to the last few years, certain principles have come to the forefront of what is necessary for employees to embrace and adapt to, and organisations to consider for future hires. The following are some of the relevant principles of the future employee:

Flexible working

Having the freedom of flexible working has become a high priority since the pandemic forced this way of work on us.  Employees have become used to the freedom of home working and aimed with the knowledge that the company needs can be met in this way, going back to full time office based jobs will not be an option for many.

Building your own career path

The traditional career path is no longer expected of the future employee. They will now be encouraged to look at their own way of progressing.  Building their own networks, sharing valuable ideas and utilising feedback will be encouraged and contributions will be recognised.  Showing leadership in this way can put employees on the path to becoming a future leader.

Information sharing

In the past employees have kept information to themselves in the hopes of getting ahead, now they freely share information with colleagues and collaborate on ideas together.  More organisations are moving to a structureless establishment to remove the hierarchy amongst peers, therefore encouraging employees to share ideas and information to work together for the benefit of each other and the business.

New ways to communicate and collaborate

Once relying only on emails and phone calls, future employees are embracing new technology and new ways to connect.  Zoom calls, Team meets and new apps for fast efficient communication are becoming the new normal.

Continuous learning

Future employees can no longer rely on just what they already know, to succeed employees will need to commit to lifelong learning.  Having the skills, ability and willingness to learn new things, how to access this information and how to apply it to their continuing work role is possibly one of the most valuable principles.  This links in to sharing information as companies don’t always have formal training programmes to adhere to.  Accessing online learning sessions, internal teaching and face to face interactions employees can share this information with others to teach and also learn from each other.

At Brighter Directions we pride ourselves on already having these principles as part of our company’s culture, if you would like to work as part of a supportive, friendly and empowered team then please contact us to discuss what vacancies we have available.

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