What would it take for business to really turn the dial on gender equality?
For years, we’ve been asking women what kind of changes they want to see in the workplace, and they have not disappointed.
Reports such as the 2025 Lovelace Report from Oliver Wyman and WeAreTechWomen or Work180’s series of What Women Want reports go into significant detail regarding the problems that drive women from the STEM workforce. They also make actionable suggestions as to what companies can do to move towards a more equal workplace.
But these changes still aren’t happening.
Even with a robust economic argument, eg, companies with women in over 30 percent of senior leadership positions are 15 percent more profitable, business activity on gender has either flatlined or regressed.
TechTalentCharter closed because a review of their data showed “a trend of D&I initiatives being sidelined and given lower priority across the sector.” Ada Lovelace Day closed because of a lack of financial support from industry.
Yet there are still lots of business leaders who believe in gender equality and want to do the right thing. So how can we help them?
I am about to start researching a report which will look at this problem from the other side of the fence: What experiences do business leaders have when working on gender equality? What practical, cultural, or structural barriers are preventing employers from executing recommended changes? What can we realistically fix and how?
I will be asking these key questions:
- What gender equity initiatives have been tried?
- Why did those that failed fail, and why did those that succeeded succeed?
- What prevents you from acting on more report recommendations?
- What cultural or knowledge-based barriers exist?
- What practical, financial or structural barriers exist?
- How could we successfully overcome these barriers?
My aim is to produce a practical roadmap for getting more women into leadership positions so that women, their colleagues and their employers can all benefit.
I’m delighted to say that Digital Science are the lead sponsor on this project, and I’ll be working with them on data collection and analysis.
If you’d like your company to sponsor this report, get results early, have a workshop or call to help you understand how to apply my findings to your company, and have your name/logo on our report, drop me a line!