In the near future the difference between companies that can thrive will be their level of equity, diversity and inclusion
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Blog-Overview
Gabriela Mueller break the bias pose 2022
Imagine a gender-equal world.
A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.
A world that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
A world where difference is valued and celebrated.
Together we can forge women’s equality.
Collectively we can all #BreakTheBias. On March 8th 2022 we celebrate International Women’s Day in a history post-pandemic world when world peace is being threatened by social unrest, political complexity, and climate change. United Nations will use theme “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”. And worldwide the #BreakTheBias campaign encourages all to root out biases against women in all their identities and roles. Strike the IWD #BreakTheBias pose and use social media tag #IWD2022 #BreakTheBias
Stereotypes and Bias—whether deliberate or unconscious—are holding women back in the workplace. It makes it harder for women to get hired and promoted and negatively impacts their day-to-day work experiences. This hurts women, and more if those are from different minority groups, and makes it hard for companies to level the playing field.
Gabriela Mueller – Strike the IWD #BreakTheBias pose and use social media tag #IWD2022 #BreakTheBias
Are you biased? Yes you are. We all are! Our job is to check and manage/eliminate our bias.
The initiatives adopted by organizations to advance women tend to include mentoring programs, networking, coaching, increased maternity leave, child care benefits, and flexible work options. These efforts, and money spent on them, are treating symptoms. Real diversity efforts require organizations to address the social patterns that stifle women’s careers, not just the symptoms that result from them.
Start small and local
The work and the ways people discriminate are local. While there are general policies in place (“we are all equal”) and operating procedures and global norms, people create local patterns everywhere they work, and these local patterns define work more strongly than centralized initiatives. The gender pay gap provides an example of localized bias. In Switzerland, the gender gap is still around 20%. Getting to more transparency and addressing the root problem at a local, regional and national level is better.
Check your work culture, does it breed inclusion and equality or not?
For example, many companies are deploying a “flexible work format” (flexible hours, working from home). These programs rarely work if there are in a culture where people who use them get penalized for it. Leaders need to rethink a range of functional practices that are biased against people who use them: talent processes that reward face time, structures that don’t support meaningful flexible roles, and team practices that fail to allow virtual workers to meaningfully contribute to direction, proximity bias. While policies and habits like these don’t intend to discriminate, as a whole, they do in the end.
Check your own bias
Leaders who are determined to #BreakTheBias and are serious about driving inclusion need to audit essential hiring, evaluation, and promotion processes and actively drive out any biases. Rather than creating stand-alone programs, leaders need innovative ways to embed inclusion in their social system and check themselves regularly.
Check your own bias, use the free Implicit Bias test by Harvard here.
Do you want to raise awareness among your teams and decision makers and launch serious efforts to become an inclusive culture embracing equity and real innovation? Let’s talk info at gabrielamueller.com
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