Finding talent for your recruitment business is hard enough, without the challenge of ensuring you have a diverse workforce as well.
Finding talent for your recruitment business is hard enough, without the challenge of ensuring you have a diverse workforce as well. Although these are issues that we face in business today, there are ways to optimise your chances of attracting and retaining the right talent for your business.
We hear all the time about the struggles that women can face in their careers when compared to men. The Gender Pay Gap is often in the news at the moment and many high-level positions and boards in business are dominated by men, so how can we combat this?
Here we have 3 ways that you can attract and retain female talent in your business.
1. Company Culture
- Ensuring that everyone has a voice: Something that may hold women back is not having the confidence to speak up. In certain situations, some people (not just women) may not feel comfortable sharing their ideas, no matter how good they may be. This could mean they are sat on a solution to a problem, or something that no one else has thought of which could really make an impact on your business. The most important thing here is making sure these people are not only heard but also listened to.
- Look beyond the usual perks: The company culture isn’t just about what company perks you offer your employees, it should be aligned with the goals and values of your company, but also your employees. Equality and work-life balance should be at the core of your culture, offering value for everyone involved.
How could this benefit your Business?
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- Sharing ideas will help to develop your business. For a business to develop and move forward it needs creativity and different ways of thinking. With everyone in the business being heard and listened to, this is a sure way of improving the business.
- Having a company culture that is truly aligned with your employees will make your company a more attractive place to work, helping you to attract talent to your business.
2. Work-Life Balance
- Flexible working practices: Flexible working has been shown to help all employees, not just women or those with children. The rigid 9-5 is fast becoming unusual, with demands on more and more of us to be contactable outside office hours and technology making this possible, flexible working can work to both the employers and employees advantage. It does however make ‘switching off’ from work much harder and this needs to be taken into consideration.
- Part-time work offering the potential for working part time can be beneficial to your existing employees, particularly those returning to work from maternity leave. Allowing the balance that they need between home life and a full-time job with a happy medium that can work well for both parties.
- Agile working: giving your employees a level of autonomy by allowing them to use their own processes and procedures to achieve business goals really empowers your employees to take charge of their own work. One way you could do this is by offering unlimited holiday. In cases where this has been implemented companies haven’t seen everyone rush to book every day off as you’d expect but have actually seen their employees take less holiday than the original allowance. With this kind of model there does need to be rules and guidelines to follow, in terms of making sure that work is completed before the holiday is approved.
How could this benefit my Business?
- Allowing autonomy has been shown to motivate people. So, by giving your employees a level of autonomy and responsibility to complete their work and achieve the business goals, you will end up with a highly motivated workforce who will not only achieve those goals but will work to smash the goals.
- Having policies such as these in place in your business will make your company an attractive place to work for potential employees. It will help you to attract people who otherwise may have been put off working for you, which will widen your pool of talent and open opportunities.
Promoting Leadership
- Provide professional opportunities for promotion: promotions to leadership or senior roles should be done on merit of skill, not length of service. The mentality of length of service promotion can sometimes prevent women progressing in business. If for instance they have had some time out of work to have a baby, while their male counter parts haven’t, these women are then at a disadvantage which they’ll never be able to overcome. By promoting on an individual’s skills, it allows a much more level playing field for all potential successors.
- Assigning a mentor to women: mentors can offer another level of support for women which can be invaluable to their development and progression at work. In addition to the support they offer, a mentor will coach and give much needed advice to these women, meaning they are better equipped to progress and offer more to the business.
How could this benefit my Business?
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- Nurturing female talent internally and promoting them within your business to leadership and senior roles will help you on your quest for a diverse business, but also puts these women in the best position possible to progress and achieve more.
- Having women in the executive roles can lead to improved financial performance, according to a study by Peterson institute for International Economics. From a global survey of more than 21,000 companies, they found that companies with at least 30% female leaders had higher profits than those that had lower percentages of women.
There are multiple challenges that face companies when they are trying to attract and retain female talent, but as you can see, there are ways that you can overcome it, whilst your business and its employees also reap the benefits at the same time. Meaning it’s a win-win situation for all.
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