On Tuesday this week we held the second Women in Recruitment Roundtable event, which is part of our #RecruitmentMeansDiversity initiative at Square One Resources’ Offices in London.On Tuesday this week we held the second Women in Recruitment Roundtable event, which is part of our #RecruitmentMeansDiversity initiative at Square One Resources’ Offices in London.
As a company we want to raise awareness around diversity and inclusion within recruitment businesses and wider networks. The place we felt that we could make the biggest impact initially was with women in recruitment. Back in December we brought together a founding group of strong and inspiring women who work in the industry to guide the developments of this initiative.
In the first roundtable event the four key themes identified were:
- Confidence- something needs to be done to build the confidence of women in the industry compared to their male counterparts.
- Role Models & Mentors- we need more role models and mentors within the industry to help build that confidence and help women progress in their careers.
- Flexible working/work-life balance- this seems to be lacking in recruitment, not just for women but in general, possibly making it harder for women in the industry.
- Retaining women in the industry- businesses are finding it difficult to retain women in their businesses once they have found them.
Since then we have worked hard to raise the profile of females in the industry, which we recapped at the second roundtable. One of the ways we have done this is by conducting a series of interviews of successful business women to inspire others who wouldn’t normally see them day to day.
Our Women Mean Business interviews that have been completed so far are:
We have been writing more content as well to highlight the four key themes to the industry; from the Confidence Gap to Role Models and Motherhood in the Workplace to Retaining Female Talent.
After we had recapped what we’d been up to since the last roundtable, we announced the collaboration between APSCo’s Women in Recruitment Programme and the developments that we have been working on. We heard from Ann Swain who gave us an overview of their programme.
We then went on to talk about the wider subject of diversity and inclusion in general, to do this we had Stella Chandler from Focal Point Trainingfacilitate the discussion. Focal Point Training are a company that offer reviews to businesses to provide actionable steps to work towards a diverse and inclusive business.
We’re working closely with Focal Point for future developments, including a webinar that will be coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that.
To conclude discussions, we opened up the table for everyone to come forward with their suggestions and ideas to drive the diversity and women in recruitment initiatives forward further.
Some of the ideas and topics that were discussed were:
- The Gender Pay Gap in Recruitment- are there any figures on this anywhere? And is there anything that we can do to work towards equal pay.
- Gender Neutrality- we should be focusing on skill sets rather than gender and this is something that we should be promoting to everyone.
- Highlighting those that are ‘getting it right’- we need to work hard to highlight and celebrate individuals that are doing a good job that we can learn from when it comes to diversity.
- Culture of Recruitment- is it the general culture of recruitment that means women don’t stay in the industry or can’t see a long-term career in it?
- We need to raise awareness of other areas of potential discrimination such as age or disability too.
We have some really exciting developments coming up soon. We do hope that we can continue to work together with people who are passionate about the initiative, to raise awareness and find solutions to work towards a truly diverse industry. We’ve got so much more to come and so much more to do, but watch this space!
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