Gender Equality in the Workplace: Guide + Checklist

On Equality Day, the symbolic day to highlight inequalities in the workplace, we examine the current state of gender equality in the EU.

From improvements and achievements and how to apply them in your organization, Key Search provides insights into the gender pay gap and how to improve gender equality in the workplace.

What is Gender Equality in the Workplace?

Gender equality in the workplace starts with
equal pay for equal work. But it does not stop here.
Other factors like gender, race, ethnicity,
sexual identity, and religion create barriers
and result in inequalities in the workplace.

Gender equality is associated with many performance-related benefits for organizations. It improves performance, allowing companies to attract and retain diverse talent which in turn is proven to increase results as creativity and productivity. These two qualities are essential as economies rebuild and restructure after the pandemic, creating more sustainable growth through equality and inclusivity.

Measurable Positive Effects of Gender Equality

Gender bias can lead to productivity losses of $2.8 million per year.

Source: Oregon State University study

Countries that have a lot of companies with high gender equality are seeing a higher overall economic performance. Integrating women into the workforce, removing the “people like me” bias on gender, race, identity during the hiring process, and eliminating barriers to promotion are important ways in creating gender equality in the workplace.

Improving gender equality in the workplace needs to be at the core of every company’s hiring decisions, company culture and long-term strategy to increase creativity, productivity and ultimately, the company’s performance.

Ready to dive deeper into topics around gender equality, inclusivity and how much female leaders bring to the table? Read more on the Key Search Blog:

How to Improve Equality in the Workplace in Your Organization

Where to start? What to look at? Equality in the workplace is an important topic that can be hard to zero in on.

The following areas are at the core of what is needed to actively work towards equality in the workplace that goes beyond gender equality alone.

Gender Equality in the Recruitment Process

Make a longer shortlist when recruiting new talent, particularly in male-dominated industries. A study has shown that adding an additional three candidates to the shortlist saw the men-to-women ratio rise from 1:6 to 1:4.

Eliminate Bias in the Recruiting Process

Assessment tools help recruiters make the right hiring decisions, ruling out bias or gut feeling. Candidate assessments based on scientific data and psychometrics help to make an unbiased decision and ultimately ensure the perfect candidate, no matter their gender, race, or ethnic background is hired.

Prioritize Work-Life Balance and Re-entry for Mothers

Improving a company’s work-life balance offerings can benefit both women and men. According to the World Economic Forum, this benefits women in particular but men as well. Various options from flexible working hours, partly or fully remote, part-time and job-share roles as well as shared parental leave policies can help women re-enter the workplace after having children.

Wage Transparency against Gender PayGap

By being transparent about wages, promoting equal pay for equal roles, employers promote gender equality in the workplace by ensuring that women are receiving the same pay as their male counterparts. A report shows that in 2020 women worldwide earned 81 cents for every US dollar men earned.

Put Gender Equality at the Core of Your Business

For gender equality to become part of a company and everyone’s approach to working together, it needs to live at the core of the organization. Build or rebuild a company that champions, questions and analyzes opportunities for gender equality improvements.

Gender Equality Checklist for Companies

HR policies: ensure they are non-discriminatory from hiring process to career progression.

Day to day work: Encourage employees to bring their creativity and individuality to projects and processes and systems that allow and encourage it.

Meetings and interactions: meet gender bias with a zero-tolerance policy. All violations need to be firmly handled to signal intent.

All stakeholders needed: from owner to employee and investor to customer, modeling gender equality and engaging all teams to do so through a genuine interest in creating an organizational culture with gender equality for all.

Leaders as role models: seek coaching if needed to commit to inclusive leadership practices – by sharing data on gender equality across key data points, its success turns into a business objective shared by everyone.

Embed in company goals: a company culture that welcomes and fosters gender equality and stands for diversity and inclusion should be part of the company goals. Support this by creating an employee council and hiring a leader with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) experience to demonstrate a commitment to equality in the workplace.

Gender Equality in the EU

The European Gender Equality Index is a tool that measures the progress of gender equality in all countries across Europe. It helps to track gains as well as need for improvement on a 0-100 points scale across key areas, helping policy makers in the EU and in the individual countries to implement effective gender equality measures.

The EU is closest to gender equality in the domains of health (88.1 points) and money (80.4 points). Gender inequalities are most worrying in the domain of power (51.9 points). Nevertheless, the score in this domain has improved the most since 2005 (+ 13 points), due to progress in nearly every Member State.

Source: Gender Equality Index

How is Gender Equality Measured?

Work, money, knowledge, power, time and health are six key domains that are measured in the Gender Equality Index. These core areas measure gender gaps and inform the calculation of scores for EU Member States, while the additional domain of intersecting inequalities adds a more detailed look at gender inequality.

Key Search Supports Gender Equality in the Hiring Process

At Key Search, we help some of the world’s most exciting startups and fast-growth companies in Europe hire their leaders. This includes helping companies reach gender parity and eliminating unconscious bias in the hiring process through data-driven candidate assessment tools.

To enable fast-growing startups and businesses to grow, gender equality needs to be represented throughout the company, all the way into the boardroom. Key Search helps companies find and hire the right talent at the right time. A knowledgeable team of experts at Key Search has helped founders, CEOs and hiring managers hire their leadership team.

Going beyond recruitment for every client, Key Search Executive Search brings an in-depth knowledge of gender equality paired with an analysis of the company’s needs and company culture to the process of attracting and hiring candidates with the right talent for every leadership position. Reach out to our team of executive recruiters to learn more.