This February, we’re so thrilled to be joined by the inspiring Michelle Redfern, a leader in the field of gender equality for women in the workplace, for a discussion about gender diversity.
Michelle is the founder of Advancing Women, an online platform focused on diversity recruiting, that consults companies on how to increase gender diversity in the workplace, something that is proven to increase a company’s sales and innovation. This isn’t just hearsay either, research shows that “companies will outperform financially when there are greater proportions of women and culturally diverse people in leadership roles.”
A range of well-respected research firms including McKinsey, Catalyst and Bain looked into high performing businesses. What they found was remarkable. Businesses that have a gender balance on the board and executive teams, were found to be 21% more likely to financially outperform and 27% more likely to create long-term value than industry competitors. Not only that, gender diverse businesses were found to outperform on Earnings Per Share by 22% and were 34% more likely to have a higher Total Shareholder return. These statistics show that an imbalanced workplace has tangible impact on financial and performance indicators.
In an interview with Paolina Calobro of FinanciELLE statements, Michelle shares how we can move from the conversation around increasing gender diversity, towards more action. “Often my first piece of advice to organizations who consult me is to tell them to stop,” she shares. “Stop spending money on leadership programs, mentoring programs, conferences and executive coaching for women.” She stresses the importance of avoiding ‘off the shelf’ action plans or female leadership programs, instead sharing that a plan “specific and unique to your organization is a far better option” is the way to go.
Michelle has discovered that using design thinking principles to diagnose problems and identify opportunities is the most efficient way to make the transition to a more gender inclusive workplace. It’s these design principles that Michelle will dive into during our “Move gender diversity from Conversation to Action” discussion on 7th of February.
If you’d like to join this illuminating morning at Future Lab, please RSVP by the 21st of January at info@globalwomenfresh.com.
