How to Attract Women to Your Workplace

Guest post from Karen O’Reilly, founder of EmployFlex. Karen provides some suggestions on how to attract more women to your workplace. 

Companies in male-dominated industries such as STEM and Construction are now being called out to ‘fix’ their gender gap and increase female participation rates. Goldman Sachs announced last week a radical policy change to not engage in IPOs for companies with all-male boards. The game is up and companies are scrambling around to come up with solutions to address the issue.

Employflex is a flexible recruitment service – they started off as Employmum – an agency specialising in finding flexible roles for women returning to work or pivoting in their career.

Since then, 5 years ago, they have spoken to thousands of women and hundreds of clients and are well versed on the challenges on both sides.

Here are their top 10 tips that can help companies attract women to the workplace:

1) Offer Returnships – These are like internships but for people who have stepped away from their career for a while – Returnships are very appealing to women who might have taken a career break to look after the kids and now want to re-enter the workplace but are getting the door slammed in their faces due to the ‘gap’ in their CV.

By opening the door to this candidate and via coaching, training and mentoring, you can elevate them back to the level they were at before they took time out.

2) Review all roles and see where flexible work and remote work can be made a reality and start working towards a flexible work policy if you do not already have one. Think like a woman or a Mother – if she is flicking through potential companies she wants to work with, does yours come across as female/family-friendly? Ask yourself how your company can improve your messaging on your website and social media.

3) Apply for the Flexible Friendly accreditation with Employflex which you can display on all platforms to let prospective candidates see that you are flexible and are open and welcome to applications from women and parents.

4) Do the work on job specs if necessary, to make them more attractive to females. Sometimes, people are so engrossed in their work environment that they fail to see that the jargon and terminology of their own job descriptions can be very intimidating and off-putting. Remember, a woman will generally not apply for a job unless she can tick everything on the job spec.

So, if your job spec is 3 pages long, the chances are you won’t have many female applicants. Employflex are witness to this daily, with women positively talking themselves out of roles that they are absolutely capable of doing while their less competent male compatriot struts off to claim the position. The confidence gap is real.

Textio Hire is an app that you can use to eliminate or reduce words that alienate women from applying.

5) Be aware of existing unconscious bias within the company – create inclusion by trying to educate everyone and consider engaging in some unconscious bias training.

6) Partner with Employmum/Employflex for recruitment needs – they are a multi-award-winning recruitment service known for their area of expertise which is flexibility in the workplace.

The fact that you are partnered with Employflex which is an accredited family-friendly company, will also send out that message to females that you are flexible and family-friendly.

7) Examine your website and your messaging .. Does it talk about females and champion them? Include a blog on your website where you can feature women in the organisation that are role models highlight where you support them.

Consider hiring a good PR company that will develop a good strategy for positive messaging from you.

8) Apply for the Family Friendly Awards ( Nov 2020) this award which was won overall by Northern Trust last year is a great one for positive reinforcement of your commitment to females and families.

You can self nominate.

https://familyfriendlyirelandawards.ie/

Join the 30% Club

Get involved with the Better Balance for Business initiative and other gender diverse groups in your area

9) Investigate the pipeline of females for your positions – is there anything you can do at the grassroots level that could increase the participation of females – e.g. going out to colleges or schools and speaking about the advantages and benefits of joining your company.

10 Ensure that you have a well thought out maternity charter, that you nurture the psychological contract a woman has with her position, that you encourage career progression for everyone, even those who have opted for a more flexible work plan and that you treat everyone the same.

Remember that ‘Diversity is being asked to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance’