#IWD2021 – Are you ready to challenge?

With International Women’s Day just around the corner, it’s worth a moment of reflection. This year’s theme is #ChooseToChallenge, meaning that without challenge, it can be hard to change anything. And we still need change.

2020 brought about its fair share of problems for every organisation. It’s fair to say that we were all heavily distracted by what was going on around the world, in our backyard, in our businesses, in our homes. So it’s understandable that important issues like gender equality can take a back seat while our minds are focused elsewhere.

We are all hoping for a vastly improved year ahead, and it’s great to already see such optimism everywhere despite a year of fatigue and in many cases, hardship. It’s important to focus our energy on making positive changes for the year ahead.

There’s the old saying that repeating the same action and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. We don’t think it’s insanity, it’s just human nature. We make small tweaks here and there to our policies or recruitment strategies in the hope things improve, but nothing really shifts the dial. It feels like we’ve changed something, but we haven’t really changed much at all. And when we get the same result, we often post-rationalise our decisions and we make the story fit: “Ah well, we knew it wouldn’t work” or “We didn’t have the bandwidth at the time” or “I see the [insert competitor’s name] couldn’t do it either”.

So it’s worth asking: When it comes to gender equity and diversity and equal opportunity, what has changed in your organisation in the last 12 months?

What will you do differently this year, compared to last year, to effect real change?

How will you attract, recruit, and develop diverse leaders?

What will really shift the dial for your business?

Remember, effecting true change will come at a cost – time, effort, sometimes money. It feels risky, except it really isn’t. A bit scary maybe, but try it once and the fear of failure dissipates.

Striving for equality in your recruitment strategy is a worthy cause and the ROI is sound. Organisations that invest the required time and resources can truly cultivate the best company cultures, boost productivity, and outstrip their competitors on other people measures like employee satisfaction and retention.

How do we know?

Because with each and every hire, those companies that invest properly make sure they are seeing all the available talent in the market, not just the talent they think may be there. Men AND Women, equally. And when they achieve this, only then can they hire truly the best person for the job.

Let’s make 2021 the year for real change. Choose to Challenge.

#IWD2021 #ChooseToChallenge