Mar. 2, 2019 "How one company balanced the gender books": Today I found this article by Harvey Schachter in the Globe and Mail:
Five years ago, the female consultants at BTS USA were a woeful 16 per cent of its total team, despite the fact North American business schools were churning out talented female graduates aiming for that field. Even clients of the strategy and leadership development firm were remarking on the fact they rarely saw female consultants. A decision was made to seek gender parity and these days female representation has just nudged above 50 per cent, achieving the goal.
In some ways, the solution was simple. Once the issue was addressed, four interrelated changes helped to turn the tide – changes that most companies wanting to also move toward parity can easily follow. The results were powerful, not just in prettier numbers, but in the firm’s performance.
“A diverse team leads to more diverse ideas and breakthrough performance,” Jessica Parisi, president and chief executive of the 275-person American unit of the Swedish-based BTS, says in an interview.
The first key decision was to make business leaders own the gender metrics and responsibility for improvement rather than HR or some other staff function. “People who expect the chief diversity officer will solve the diversity issue never get anywhere,” she notes.
This was, as you might expect, not all that comfortable for those business leaders told they would now be judged not just on profit but also the male-female ratio of their team, given this didn’t seem like something that would change much in a few quarters or even a few years. But it forced them to focus on the issue. And the numbers started to get better in about six months, with the next wave of recruitment.
That’s where the second key factor comes in: The recruitment team was required to have an equal number of female and male candidates in the pipeline – equal being defined flexibly as a 40/60 ratio either way. “The recruitment team felt this would be tough as it had not happened naturally in the past. It just took more discipline and focus,” she says.
The company didn’t have to switch campuses for recruiting, based on gender enrolment at universities, but only had to seek more female candidates at the ones they visited and provide a more female-friendly face to those interviewed. The firm’s female consultants also reached out in their own networks to try to find top candidates, again making this more of a broad-based business function than an HR responsibility, and turning recruitment into a continual rather than seasonal process.
Vital to the effort was ensuring that female candidates could see people like them in their encounters with the company. In particular, making sure at least one and preferably two female consultants were present for interviews, whereas in the past the heavily male consulting force meant men were more likely to be the interviewers.
"If women candidates could talk with other women or even just see more women in the interview rooms, they would more naturally feel like they would belong at BTS,” Ms. Parisi wrote on Workforce.com. They could also ask questions about the environment they might be entering – notably, if they were to have a child, how the company would handle the situation.
This meant significantly more recruiting work for the female consultants since there were fewer of them, but the company responded by reducing their billable hours responsibility.
The fourth key factor was attacking unconscious bias in their selection process. A lot of the questions has been open-ended and often geared to whether the person would fit in, as in this factor for judging candidates: “Would I want to hang out with this person in an airport?”
Instead, structured questions were introduced and candidates were put into simulated work situations, facing critical consulting moments, judged on a point system against the factors needed to succeed in the work.
Beyond that, the unit became much more vigorous about talking about the work-life flexibility their Swedish heritage traditionally allowed. And it invested in that flexibility and retaining women.
If a woman came back from maternity leave but was still pumping breast milk, they would change the consulting team from two to three people so the woman could handle that responsibility with some privacy and the client wasn’t short-changed.
“It was our policy to over-staff. Pumping lasts for months. This person will be with us for years,” Ms. Parisi says.
Nothing they did was rocket science. It just took goals, determination and a rigorous examination of existing practices with a willingness to change. It’s open to any company that lacks gender parity and wants to improve.
Cannonballs
- First there was Kraft and Heinz. Now there is Kraft Heinz; more accurately, a struggling Kraft Heinz, facing new consumer tastes. The apparent solution being considered is to sell some brands to improve margins and then merge with another food maker, so presumably the larger entity can struggle again. The success rate of mergers is low; why are they still a prominent instinct in the executive suite?
- My opinion: I didn't know that mergers success was low. I thought mergers were supposed to make the company bigger and it would be successful.
- A survey found that 23 per cent of Americans who work at companies with more than 500 employees are unsure of the name of their CEO.
- The five Is of leadership, according to Canadian blogger and federal government economist Jim Taggart, are
- integrity,
- insight,
- innovation,
- initiative,
- and intelligence.
- https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/management/article-how-one-company-balanced-the-gender-books/
The "best person for the job", should be based on objective and complete criteria and consideration, and taking into account unconscious bias. Traditionally, that's the weak spot.
Articles like this illustrate this concept in spades. When teams are more diverse, they perform better.
So, what are the financial numbers now, compared to 5 years ago? They are conspicuous in their absence.
Gender equality is an artificial construct. The goal should be to recruit the brightest and the best for every position. Gender, race, orientation, or any other stratification should be irrelevant.
If one happens to achieve gender equality in the process, it should be a happy bi-product - nothing more and nothing less. If it doesn't occur, It's no reflection of disfunction. Equal rights for all - special privileges for none.
Identity politics and social engineered equal outcomes are the mainstays of virtuous 'progressives', but while everyone is just so amazed as to how good they are, it will lead to far greater problems, such as Trump for one. Best person for the job - anything else and there will be issues.
This kind of article is valuable. When seeking change, it has been shown that seeking out 'bright spots' (past successes - I think this is a Heath brothers term) and examining them in detail to learn their secrets is one of the best methods. The author has done this very clearly here, enabling others to copy the method. Bravo!
Sept. 18, 2020 "Stress hits fever pitch": Today I found this article by Rita DeMontis in the Edmonton Sun. (I found the free newspaper on the bus).
What is The Prosperity Project?
The Prosperity Project™ is a new not-for-profit organization founded to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Canadian women who are being disproportionately affected. The Project is pan-Canadian in scope and fills an important need to explicitly link women and prosperity, underscoring the economic importance of gender equality during the COVID-19 pre-recovery, recovery and post-recovery periods. We apply an intersectional identities and inclusivity lens to serve women who also identify as Indigenous, women of colour, refugees, persons with disabilities and/or LGBTQ2+. We recognize that different approaches are required to meet the distinct needs of all Canadian women including First Nations, Inuit and Métis women. The Project acknowledges the unique needs of women of colour and will enlist this broad spectrum. We are currently identifying partner organizations in order to deliver our programs. The Project was conceived by a diverse group of more than 60 female leaders from across Canada who will be actively supporting The Prosperity Project in important ways. The organization was founded and is being led by Women’s Executive Network and Canadian Board Diversity Council Founder, Pamela Jeffery.
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