Tess Sloan and Alisha Adams are the founders of Eleven Eleven Talent Collective, a Vancouver-based, global recruitment agency hiring talent across retail, apparel, consumer goods, tech, finance, and real estate development industries.

Eleven Eleven catalyzes transformational experiences in the lives of candidates and companies alike. Our name is rooted in the philosophy that there’s an intentional alignment that happens when you make bold moves towards your dreams. It’s not chance—it’s a purposeful shift that transforms your career and ultimately, your life.

Diversity and inclusion is the number one topic that candidates and current employees are asking us about right now. We know that businesses with more diverse workforces are more successful and profitable than businesses with less diversity and now, more than ever, it is critical to build a team with diversity and inclusion top of mind.

The COVID-19 pandemic has further magnified inequalities in our society and has brought issues of diversity and inclusion to the fore – including for women in the workplace.

Recent data shows that participation in the labour force by women is at its lowest level in three decades.  In part, this is because industries dominated by women have been most affected by pandemic closures (e.g. hospitality, retail, services) and childcare demands caused by school closures and remote learning are often placed on women.

Data from the Royal Bank of Canada shows that one third of women who lost their jobs between February and June did not seek work, putting them at risk of long-term job separation and, in turn, future wage penalties.

Not only have women lost ground on their advancement in the workforce, they have faced major health and safety concerns during the pandemic. Data from the United Nations Global Impact Report reveals that 70% of the healthcare workers who are risking their lives on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic are women.

As women in business, we are particularly concerned that the important strides women have made over the last decade around equality in the workforce, promotions and pay gaps are at risk of taking a giant step backward.

Despite the gloomy statistics related to women in the workforce since the onset of the pandemic, we believe there are steps that a business can take to double down and ensure gender equality continues to be supported within their organization.

Here are eight actions that a company can take to support gender equality in their workforce:

1. Create flexible jobs. Flexibility could look like job sharing, part-time positions, remote work opportunities, flexible hours that include time to drop-off and pick-up children from school/daycare.
2. Provide interview times outside of working hours to ensure accessibility for women. A large number of women cannot take time off to interview during business hours. Put a bullet point on your job posting that indicates flexible interview times can be arranged to encourage more applications.
3. Ensure there is female representation across the business. You cannot be what you cannot see! Not only is this an equitable hiring practice, research shows that the more diverse your teams are, the more profitable your business will be.
4. Promote women into leadership positions. Is there an opportunity to advance a woman in your workforce? Take it. We are in the work of levelling the playing field. The leadership skills of the future include empathy and resilience. Women in particular generally score higher on these ‘soft skills’ in emotional intelligence testing.
5. Create a safe culture for employee feedback. Ensure women feel safe to speak up, especially when they don’t agree with the general consensus of the room.
6. Invest in self-development courses to foster empowerment within female employees.
7. Create a Diversity and Inclusion statement and communicate it. What is your organization’s commitment to Diversity, Inclusion and Equity? Do your employees know? Take a further stand and get specific on how you will be addressing issues pertaining to women and minority groups.
8. Commit to pay transparency and communicating what actions your businesses is taking to close the gender pay gap.

Check out the Eleven Eleven podcast where they share content related to diversity and inclusion and how companies can get started: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/session-eleven/id1507007811

Sources: 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/women-employment-canada-covid-19-1.5652788

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/14/how-coronavirus-could-do-long-term-damage-to-womens-careers.html

https://unglobalcompact.org/academy/how-business-can-support-women-in-times-of-crisis

https://unbounce.com/pay-up-for-progress/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter-share&utm_campaign=pay-up-progress&utm_content=confirmation-page-share