This year, gender equality has been under the spotlight, and with good reason. Through numerous research reports and news stories, we’ve seen the stark reality of female representation in leadership roles. This has brought to light the fact that many businesses simply aren’t doing enough to increase the number of women in top jobs.
The marketing, communications and media sector is just one of the industries under scrutiny.
I write this as a business leader: Diversity is a business imperative. And the results speak for themselves. Research has shown time and time again that diverse teams are more profitable, more efficient, and lead to a better working culture. We can only win when we drive to create a diverse and inclusive workforce.
The challenge is that systemic bias is pervasive, and we need to take proactive steps to ensure real change is happening. In partnering with LinkedIn on its ‘Deeds not words’ campaign, which launched earlier this week, Women in Advertising and Communications, London (WACL) has done just that. Using LinkedIn’s insights to highlight the root and reality of the issue, WACL has created an initiative that not only raises awareness, but champions diversity by breaking down the barriers to gender inequality.
Our insights, taken from a pool of 597,000 UK professionals working in the marketing, media and communications industry*, show women make up 50% of the workforce, and while that parity is great to see, it’s not the end of the story. When it comes to leadership roles, only 36% of jobs are held by women, resulting in a 14% leadership gap.
Unfortunately, for many this doesn’t come as a surprise. But what it should do is act as a starting gun for our whole industry to sit up and take action. Further insights from the LinkedIn team show that over the last ten years the number of women hired into leadership roles has steadily increased. We’re on the right track, but there’s still so much more that can be done.
WACL’s commitments suggest a number of manageable and practical actions that can help businesses take the right steps toward a more diverse workforce:
Establish who is accountable for gender diversity and inclusion at a senior level and ensure it is part of their objectives.
- Shared responsibilities can often fall through the cracks. Assigning one person to ensure diversity initiatives are met and engaged with by the whole business will be a key starting point.
- Making diversity part of our objectives means there’s an extra push to make substantial progress and visible results. Diversity is not just a conversation topic, it’s a fundamental part of our business that desperately needs attention.
Establish a future leaders and returners programme to nurture talent
- Making leadership a viable option for women from an early point in their career is crucial in helping develop the right skills and experience. Putting this on the agenda for women’s careers sooner rather than later will help accelerate them into leadership positions and give them all the tools necessary to succeed.
- For returners programmes, it’s no secret that taking time off for children can impact women’s careers much more than men’s. Ensuring that women have a structured return where they can grow and advance in their career, once their maternity leave has ended, means women can progress in line with their goals, and not be held back by having children.
Use structured interviews for recruitment (and promotions) and ensure gender balanced interview panels
- One of the key issues in recruitment is unconscious bias. “Talent reminds us a lot of ourselves” is a mentality we need to move away from, and quickly. Gender balance in interview panels will ensure a variety of experience and perspectives during the hiring process, steering us away from hiring the same people over and over.
- In light of the focus on our own biases, we’ve just made the ‘unconscious bias’ training free of charge on the LinkedIn Learning site, to help hiring-committees and boards to identify their biases and take steps to move past these, and achieve more diverse teams.
The business case for diversity is strong, and it’s well overdue that we make steps to close the leadership gap. I’m proud to say that LinkedIn’s LMS business reached gender parity as of last year, but we can’t rest on our laurels. A diverse and inclusive workplace is vital to our growth and development as people and as an industry. There will be no substitute for getting this right.
*This includes professionals working in a range of industries within the MMC sector, including newspapers, publishing, market research, marketing & advertising, public relations & communications, writing & editing, online media, and printing.
