Lately, diversity has been of much importance in human resources. With the world becoming more progressive by the day, creating strategies that initiate and promote diversity in all areas, such as sexuality, race, and age has now become more important than ever. However, even though organisations realize the need of creating a gender-balanced workforce, several issues surround gender diversity. Firstly, the global pay gap still exists and more than often cases of sexual harassment spring up.
It is ironical that while most organizations realize that gender parity is financially beneficial, they tend to ignore gender diversity issues and fail to pay enough attention to solving them. There are a few steps that organizations can take to improve and solve the problems surrounding gender diversity.
Equal Pay
Equal pay for equal work is quite an obvious solution. And yet, even today the pay gap persists all across the world. HR departments need to ensure that inequality in terms of wages doesn’t exist in their companies. This aspect should also be promoted and organizations should announce the fact that wage equality is their primary concern. Also, with regard to internal promotions, women should be given a fair chance and should not be overlooked.
Creating a Team that Celebrates Diversity
Organizations should make it a priority to provide training to their team on the importance of diversity. This should be conducted at all levels and should shed light on discrimination in all forms. Unconscious bias should also be spoken about since it is a huge barrier to comprehensive equality in the workplace. Various workshops and training programs can be conducted stating the importance of gender equality. Diversity should be a company value and every member of the organization must be in-sync with it.
Additionally, sexual harassment training is an absolute must and should be included. Since sexual harassment can take many forms, employees should be aware of them and their consequences. Women should be aware of their rights when it comes to dealing with this issue. Sexual harassment can be avoided if organizations spell out the consequences right from the start and also inform employees about the procedure in which they can report harassment.
Family Friendly Policies
Organizations should create flexible policies for working parents. These should be made available to both sexes. While most companies do have such policies in place, they tend to assume that only female employees shoulder the responsibility of childcare. However, working fathers should be given the same consideration too. Policies that promote work-life balance include a flexible work schedule, the option of working from home occasionally and child day-care at the office.
Promote Women
The achievements of women in the office should be celebrated and highlighted. Further on, HR teams should pay close attention to the success of their female colleagues and ensure that the deserving women are promoted at the same rate as the men in the organization.
The Society for Human Resource Management has stated that organizations with higher gender diversity on an average earn approximately $600 million more revenue than corporations that fail to promote equality. Apart from financial benefits, a gender balanced workplace promotes a healthy culture and opens the door for innovation. Hence, it must be encouraged and paid attention to. Is your current workplace in favour of gender diversity?
