Best Practice Solutions

Applying a critical Success Factor Framework to Worplace Gender Equality

Organisations that effectively, efficiently and sustainably increase the representation and influence of women in their workplace employ a Critical Success Factor Framework encompassing:

  • Leadership Commitment and Communication
  • Supportive Policies and Programs
  • Measurements and Accountability

Critical Success Factors

  • DE&I part of strategic plan Informed DE&I action plan in place
  • DE&I with cross-spectrum representation
  • Bias training for hiring managers
  • Interventions to mitigate against bias:
    • Recruitment targets
    • Diverse short lists
  • Equal starting pay
  • Flexible work in all forms, accessed by leaders
  • Equal Parental Leave
  • Equal Parental Leave - equal uptake
  • Diverse panels - Performance Evaluations
  • Zero Tolerance for sexism, racism, ableism and homophobia
  • Reverse mentoring program
  • Pay gap audit and redress
  • Flexible work in all forms, accessed by leaders
  • Employee Engagement Surveys measuring inclusion
  • Bias training for leaders
  • Inclusive Leadership Development program, ensuring diverse employees represented
  • Sponsorship, senior executives paired with high-potential diverse talent
  • Expanded search options, longer lead times
  • Diversity in succession plans
  • Pay gap audit and redress
  • Flexible work in all forms, accessed by leaders

Leadership Commitment and Communication

Review the following DE&I business case articles to find ways to define this for your business:

  • BCEC WGEA Gender Equity Insights 2020
  • McKinsey & Company Diversity Wins: How Inclusion Matters

Understanding what is most relevant for my organisation will help create benchmarks for inclusion. These might be: better performance/productivity, greater innovation, improved employee engagement, market reputation, or all of the preceding.

What is your personal perspective? It’s important to find ‘my why‘.

Which of the policies and programs to attract, retain and progress women (as listed above)

  • are currently in place?
  • are socialised and normalised across the firm?

Key initiatives could include: Unconscious bias mitigation training, Diversity Council and ERG’s (for SMEs), Diverse hiring and performance evaluation panels/succession planning, flexible work, equal parental leave, sponsorship, pay gap audit, zero tolerance sexism with training

Measurement and Accountability

As with any strategic business priority, fostering diverse and inclusive workplaces requires a means of measuring progress and holding stakeholders to account. It is most effectively executed through the establishment of ambitious but realistic targets within a set timeframe.

Gender diversity targets are typically set across all levels of the organisation – from entry-level (recruitment targets) to senior leadership (proportion of promotions by gender). Achieving targets involves monitoring and measuring progress on the initiatives implemented to achieve them. For example, a sponsorship program for high-potential women is designed to increase the number of women in leadership roles, thus directly impacting a senior leadership target. Therefore, the sponsorship program itself should have measurable metrics (e.g. size of cohort, duration  of program, projections to partnership).

The following resources provide further information on the rationale for and a practical guide to establishing gender diversity targets:

  • Targets with Teeth, rationale behind measurable targets
  • How to Set Gender Diversity Targets, WGEA toolkit for small and large firms

The following case study provides an illustration of the Critical Success Factor framework in practice:

A review of WGEA’s Employer of Choice for Gender Equality (EOCGE) citation holders

In 2020, with the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, the University of Queensland released the ‘Employer of Choice for Gender Equality: Leading Practices in Strategy, Policy and Implementation’ report detailing the policies and practices of Australia’s leading 120 firms in creating workplace gender equality.

Data for the report came from successful recipients of the WGEA Employer of Choice for Gender Equality Citation – over 120 firms over a five-year period were examined to identify leading practice in every area of organisational life.

The results revealed, with the right culture, practices, governance and dedication, it is possible to drive workplace gender equality.

WGEA EOCGE firms have more rapidly shrinking pay gaps, greater numbers of women in senior roles, greater numbers of women overall and greater rates of progression for women than non-EOCGE firms.

Success requires whole of organisation, long term commitment that starts from the top. Without the authentic commitment of a CEO (and board) who genuinely believes and understands the drivers of gender inequality, change is slow at best.

The Business Council of Australia, McKinsey & Company and the Workplace Gender Equality Agency undertook a study to provide an evidence-based approach to dismantle barriers to women’s participation at senior levels and a correlation between representation of women in senior roles and the practice of normalising flexible work. Using three years of WGEA data and more than 40 interviews resulted in Women in Leadership: Lessons from Australian companies leading the way, a 10-step guide for getting more women into leadership:

  1. Build a strong case for change
  2. Role-model a commitment to diversity, including with business partners
  3. Redesign roles and work to enable flexible work and normalise uptake across levels and genders
  4. Actively sponsor rising women
  5. Set a clear diversity aspiration, backed up by accountability
  6. Support talent through life transitions
  7. Ensure the infrastructure is in place to support a more inclusive and flexible workplace
  8. Challenge traditional views of merit in recruitment and evaluation
  9. Invest in frontline leader capabilities to drive cultural change
  10. Develop rising women and ensure experience in key roles

Tough spots to Come

Tough spots to come
  • Tech industry barriers to women’s advancement
  • Engaging men in fostering a safe, respectful and inclusive workplace
  • Preventing and Responding to Workplace Sexual Harassment –meeting ‘Positive Duty’ legislation
  • Gender Pay Gap
  • Intersectionality – considerations for underrepresented employees
  • The intergenerational workplace
  • Gender Equality and AI