Women in your workforce: Why balance matters

1. How can companies and NGOs provide leadership development opportunities for women that encourage them to go after higher-level positions? While working in the field, Kelly Cronen, gender practice director for Chemonics International, noticed that one of the biggest barriers for women to pursue higher level positions was the issue of access to decision makers that can help promote women into these positions. To overcome this on one particular project, she noted, the senior-level management intentionally created opportunities for junior staff — typically made up of younger women — to demonstrate their skills and to raise issues about any gender-related constraints in the office. For example, Cronen said, the management team asked the junior female staff to identify training needs that would give them the skills they needed to advance, which included opportunities to present the team’s work, to manage specific sections of the portfolio and opportunities to serve as acting manager when their supervisor was out of the office. Along the way, the management team also realized that most team leader meetings didn’t identify gender-related constraints in the office not because none existed, but because so few women were at the level to participate in team leader meetings. “As a result, we created a special working group for female staff of all levels to identify and address gender-related constraints as they arose,” Cronen said. After about six months of intentionally creating opportunities to raise the visibility of female staff, about half of the women were able to be promoted into higher level positions, she added. In addition to what the organization can do, individuals can identify mentors and role models within their organization and partner with them to draw on their experiences and brainstorm how best to manage both work and life, said Stephanie Ngo, human resources specialist for United Nations Population Fund. Encouraging and training managers and leaders to be talent scouts and identifying and advocating for high performing women — and men — is key, she said. “Some of the best advice and encouragements I have received have been from male managers with whom I have had candid performance and career discussions with and who have encouraged me to go for positions I would not have otherwise instinctively gone for,” Ngo said. Formal training in leadership development is becoming more common in organizations too, and can both give women the confidence and the technical skills to take increasingly senior positions within a nongovernmental organization or company. “For example, my company provides a weeklong ‘Leadership Initiative’ for employees at all levels of the organization; courses include communication styles, intergenerational leadership, Myers-Briggs assessments and effective coaching and conflict mitigation,” said Kathryn Erskine, senior talent acquisition manager at Creative Associates International. “If your organization does not provide such training opportunities, I encourage you to look for external providers.” Another way in which women are encouraged to try their hands at higher-level positions is for them to volunteer for a special project within the organization, Erskine added, and succession management is also a critical aspect of retention strategy and an excellent way for women to grow into leadership roles. 2. What approaches are currently used to integrate men into the conversation about the importance of empowering women within a cultural context? Cronen noted that one common element to successful integration methods is that they must first create the space for men to play a positive role in empowering women. A successful activity she has run on past programs is a ‘gender hero’ contest in which her team asked both male and female staff to tell them the ways that they have acted as heroes for gender equality and peace in their communities. “It was inspiring to hear about the many things women and men are already doing to promote equality, but the process of having people talk about being gender heroes also opened the space for men to play a positive and active role in supporting women’s empowerment,” Cronen said. Another interesting example of how Chemonics has highlighted these conversations with men and women is captured in a slideshow here, which shows the result of a youth forum for female and male youth in Afghanistan to discuss the future of women in the community. The organization Men Advocating Real Change provides a number of good resources for getting men into the conversation – from the men's perspective, shared fellow CrowdHall panelist Monica Oldham, program manager for diversity and inclusion for the World Bank Group. 3. What kinds of policies do you think your organization could put into place to encourage more women to stay and move up in the workplace? “Any policies that enable women to have a strong work/life balance will encourage them to stay and move up in the workplace,” Erskine said in response. Erskine pointed to a flexible work schedule, allowing employees to telecommute once or twice a week, providing emergency child care and giving extended maternity leaves as positive promotions of work/life balance. “In general, it seems like the U.S. lags behind other countries in this area,” she said. “My sister-in-law is Canadian and gets a one-year maternity leave, at 90 percent pay, and then when she returns to work, the government will greatly subsidize her child care expenses. What a luxury!” According to Ngo, organizations can promote gender balance by setting gender balance targets and ensuring these are measured on a quarterly basis. Ensuring strong commitment at the leadership level to make gender balance a priority also makes a difference, she said, and incorporating consideration for gender balance within the recruitment and selection process is a must. Organizations can adopt as one of their strategic objectives to take measures to ensure women's equal access to and full participation in power structures and decision-making. “One way of monitoring this is to measure and report on women in senior level positions on a quarterly basis,” she said. 4. Tech in development = guy’s world. How can we improve women’s opportunities in highly technical fields in international development? Cronen pointed to the U.S. State Department’s TechWomen Initiative as an example of a program to improve women’s opportunities in a highly technical field. The initiative is designed specifically to improve technical opportunities for women in Africa and the Middle East. Their website offers a variety of great ideas to increase the number of women in technical fields, Cronen said. 5. Why there are more women at the secretary level than at a higher level in most organizations? “Your observation is one many see across organizations in pretty much every industry: a greater percentage of women in the lower ranks and a lower percentage at the top,” said Devex’s own Kate Warren, director of global recruitment services. “Some organizations can look like they have a good gender balance overall, but when you break down the numbers, most still have pretty shockingly low numbers of women in management or leadership position.” Warren pointed to a number of reasons, one being familial obligations. In most parts of the world women, she noted, even those who work outside of the home, are primary childcare providers. As their careers progress and work obligations, including travel, increase, it becomes harder and harder for them to balance both career and family. “Many women will choose to either drop out of the workforce or choose less demanding roles,” she said. Lack of technical training and education isn't a factor in all sectors, Warren noted, but many global development careers require a high level of technical expertise in areas where there aren't as many women graduating with those kinds of degrees — like engineering, economics, business or agriculture. “For some positions, there just aren't as many women out there with the right training and certifications,” she said. Read more questions and answers on the “Women in your workforce: Why balance matters” CrowdHall here. Subscribe to our weekly Doing Good newsletter to receive top international development career and recruitment news.