6 Steps in Providing an Enabling Environment for Female Leaders:
1. Include women in succession planning.
2. Strategy: Develop the internal pipeline.
3. Executive Sponsorship.
4. Provide mentoring
5. Tap into employee resource group for next generation.
6. Training and Development targeted at women.
1. Include women in succession planning
According to diversity best practice 2017, For most of the organisations that participated in the survey, less than seven percent of employees who were part of the pipeline pool of employees included in succession planning were women. These results are telling, organisations need to deliberately develop strategies to include women in succession planning. Succession planning is a transitional process. Business leaders need to assess their organisation’s demographics and age profile, identify when employees in mission critical positions will retire, understand what knowledge and skills will be lost, and develop a plan to advance and onboard the next generation of diverse talent.
2. Strategy: Develop the internal pipeline.
Workplace programs and efforts such as work-life integration and pay equity are also important factors to consider in strategies to develop the pipeline of talent in the industry. Consider that workplace flexibility and fair pay are two frequently cited reasons employees join and stay with a company.
Opportunities for individual coaching, affinity-based leadership development, executive sponsorship, and mentoring are also essential components of the leadership development continuum – particularly for women and diverse employees who may lack access to training and advancement options. Stretch assignments are also effective interventions to develop new skills and perspectives, and including diverse high-potential employees in networking events with company and industry leaders is another strategy to build competencies and forge new relationships.
3. Executive Sponsorship.
Sponsorship is focused on advancement and predicated on power. A recent Harvard Business Review article describes sponsorship as active support by someone appropriately placed in the organisation who has significant influence on decision-making processes or structures and who is advocating for, protecting, and fighting for the career advancement of an individual. At its core, sponsorship is about trust. The sponsor must trust that the protege will do a good job and make the most of the opportunities opened up to them. Likewise, a protege must trust that sponsors have his or her best interests and career goals in mind when suggesting particular opportunities.
Sponsors are able to identify weak spots in job performance and help find remedies, expand career vision, elevate ambition and advocate vigorously for specific promotions. Successful sponsorship creates and builds reputational capital for the protege and the sponsor. By selecting a protege who goes on to make a greater impact in and for the organisation, the sponsor enhances his or her own reputational capital as a discerning leader invested in talent sustainability and a powerful contributor to organisations’ success and bottom line.
4. Provide mentoring
Mentoring is a proven method for training and development. But where it often falls short is providing an equal mentoring experience for employees of different backgrounds. Women and have difficulty in finding mentors of the same race or gender because of under representation in the upper levels of management.
5. Tap into employee resource group for next generation.
Employee resource groups and business resource group (ERGs/BRG) leaders play an important role in connecting the workforce, engaging employees, consumers, and communities, and carrying out complex and far-reaching D&I initiatives. They also represent an important, often untapped, source of diverse talent already working in a leadership capacity in the company. Many ERG/BRG leaders hold a cross-functional leadership role in the company, and are simultaneously responsible for engaging employees to volunteer and participate in D&I related work and influencing company decision makers to sponsor projects and commit resources.
In that capacity, they routinely leverage knowledge, promote networking, and engage employees and business stakeholders in productive dialogue and problem-solving. ERG/BRG leaders also have strong leadership skills sets, including strategic planning and influencing without authority, as well as experience meeting goals and managing budgets. Business leaders need to recognize this important talent asset. The ERG/BRG leadership role should be viewed as an essential business role in the company, and as such, be directly tied to meaningful opportunities for advancement and career development.
6. Training and Development targeted at women.
Deliberately provide training targeted at women for leadership advancement purposes. This involves providing development opportunities that are aligned to women career aspirations and the business strategy.
We help organisations align their HR practices to drive diversity and inclusion.
Author: Perpetua Makwetla
Director: Ketopele Human Consulting
Contact us on info@ketopelehc.co.za for a consultation.