How to recognize and tackle gender inequality in our companies.
Gender Inequality at the workplace is one of the issues that concern me the most, thus 2 years ago, I was involved in a scenario where I was being paid less than my men college, having the same duties and the same experience. When I tried to talk with my boss, he told me the rates were already established and there was nothing he can do, and if I was unsatisfied I was able to quit, and I did.
It is a fact that a lot of companies have been tackled this problem. However, according to the WYCA Metro Vancouver
“Canada is ranked among the top 10 countries in women’s equality in the workplace, women continue to be underrepresented in political and professional leadership positions.”
Thus it is important to learn how to differentiate if our company is practicing gender inequality and how can we work on our bias to become a company more inclusive and fair with all the employees.
According to InHerSight, a platform that measures companies’ behavior, the following examples are different ways to practice gender discrimination in the workplace: hiring, layoffs, job duties, work schedules, payment, promotion or training opportunities.
Companies put a lot of effort into trying to become a diverse and equally company but since they are hiring, they are not aware of what they are doing improperly. In 2016, Harvard Business Review (HBR) wrote an article about Designing a Bias-Free Organization, where it suggests to have structured established interviews where all the candidates have the same questions and in the same order. Also, it is important to look over the ads and make sure the recruitment language used, it is no biased, discouraging any sex.
Furthermore, if we are going to use any A.I tool to hire, do not program it biased in favor of any sex, such as Amazon did last year, and ended up removing it, thus Amazon realizes it is harder to fix it once it is programmed. On the other hand, the Government of Canada has a section called Employment and Social Development Canada were is an article called “How employers can advance equality and diversity” and recommends a platform called “Applied” that is focused on the hiring improvement based on behavioral and data. This platform was launched in 2016 and has been used by organizations, government departments, and over 70,000 candidates, offering them different interviewing techniques and tools that avoid bias and promote inclusion.
Another practice that this article recommends is the promotion of leadership programs where both genders engaged equality. Some organizations such as CIBC worked with MARC (Men Advocating Real Change) and noted a cultural improvement in their work field by allowing them workers dialogue about diversity and inclusion.
InHerSight, also mention 4 more adaptations to implement within the companies to tackle gender discrimination. The first one is to develop an inclusive policy for all your employees and merged it with your companies’ values. The second one is to educate all your employees, helping them to recognized when they or their colleagues are being under gender discrimination and how to report it. Third, address problems, this is the pick of the process because if your employees are reporting gender discrimination, and you as a responsible do not act immediately, they will lose confidence and will stop reporting. Take them seriously. Last not no least, training, if we do not know about the topic, it would be impossible to tackle or recognize it. For this reason, keep your employees trained with talks where they can clarify their doubts and have a better understanding of the topic.
After all, it is really easy to bring our bias to our network and unconsciously practice gender discrimination in the work field. For this reason, it is important to change our mindset and our employees to identify and work on that to become an inclusive company.












