THE MERITS OF A FEMALE-FRIENDLY WORKPLACE CULTURE

If women don't enjoy working for you, why would they want to shop or buy from you?

Even today, female-friendly workplace cultures are still scarce. You should be aware that the culture you foster within your business directly reflects the ease and comfort of your customers. It is in the best interest of your company to build a culture that women can get behind. If you do this, both female employees and consumers will take notice! Do you want to offer an experience she can't live without? Then you'd better create a culture where women want to work. The ultimate effect is that women feel comfortable buying from you. The same applies to your organization: happy female employees, happy female consumers, happy company (and higher profits!). As the saying goes, happy wife, happy life.

People are the heart of any organization. I've long believed that creating loyalty, authentic engagement, and positive experiences for our internal customers leads to making the sought-after customer for life and, as a result—increased profits. Study after study shows that companies that foster an environment of engagement for their employees to see a 20 percent increase in productivity! So why are only some companies doing this? Why aren't we all treating our employees like the valued internal customers that they are? And why—why—are companies in many industries ignoring almost half of the workforce—women? These are the big questions. Cultivating a culture that encourages and supports women will only increase employee and customer engagement. It is a win-win.

THE CHALLENGE: WHAT WILL YOU DO TO IMPROVE YOUR CULTURE?

When you want to achieve something bigger and better, you must be willing to change yourself fundamentally. You must be ready to become intentional and deliberate with everything you do. If you want true transformation, you must start by strengthening the core of who you are and what you expect, then do what's needed to become stronger. The sayings, "What you put out is what you get back," and "You are a mirror reflection of yourself" are both very accurate. Achieving something better will strengthen your profits, brand image, and ethics. Making your workplace culture more amenable to female employees can bring these changes. You can do this in many ways, but the following few pages offer some ideas that have proven effective because women thrive under these conditions and with these perks. Female consumers will trust your brand more if they see women like themselves represented at all levels in the organization. Still, the question that may be swimming around in your head (making you feel dizzy) is, "How do I attract more women, and once I have hired them, how do I retain them and keep them engaged?" I won't pretend to be an HR expert, but I have researched this subject and don't want to leave you hanging without a little "how-to." Here are eight items I advise organizations to pay attention to or change so they can transform their culture to focus on the importance of attracting, hiring, and retaining female employees.?

Accept that women are different from men.?

Men are physiologically different from women. We have reviewed the many ways men and women differ physiologically. There is no hiding from the fact that we are different. Why not accept it and use these differences to our advantage? It would be best if you filled your teams with those that have different strengths than you. You won't get very far when you curate teams with "like people" (people that are just like you). Be open to hiring the best person with the strengths needed to fill the gaps on your team, regardless of gender or race. It may be easier and safer to lead like people (men hiring men rather than women), but I can promise it will only advance your agenda and success.?

Decide that diversity is essential and make it a company initiative.

MacKay CEO Forums is a membership program in which CEOs and top executives from different businesses throughout Canada come together to learn from their peer groups how to improve their skill levels as executives. A woman founded MacKay CEO Forums, and recently, I had the pleasure of discussing with her MacKay's goal of ultimately getting their membership up to 50 percent female. I suggested to her that MacKay open up the forums to women in entry management positions, so it can nurture these young women's careers and help them open the doors to the C-suite. This is an excellent example of a company that has decided to make equality a focus. Without this first step of actively striving for change—if it isn't crucial to you as a leader or brand—the rest will fall through the cracks. Your brand will continue doing more damage, breaking trust with your female employees and consumers.

Get employees to buy into diversity.

Every person must believe in diversity to truly become part of their DNA. All your hiring managers must look past gender and race. All leaders must believe in equal opportunity, and every frontline employee must believe that success and movement are possible. By prioritizing equality and setting goals to bridge the gap, you will show your organization that this initiative will be around for a while. A culture shift must happen, and your people must get on or off the train. Much like designing and implementing a brand experience program, you will have those who are excited, sit on the fence, and want nothing to do with it. When you decide to implement a program like this, you must be willing to make the hard calls to remove anyone who doesn't buy in. Because if you don't, you are sending a message to the rest of your employees that you don't care about transforming the culture (or experience) for either your female employees or customers. Talk about the importance of diversity at every opportunity. Share success stories, and don't let a few bad apples ruin it for the rest.

Rethink the benefits your company offers.

Identify what female candidates need or want to work for you, then instead of documenting these and forgetting them, do something about it. Adjust the benefits you offer your employees. Rethinking your company's benefits will elevate female and male employees' experience. A few benefits to consider are flexible work hours, working from- home option, increased personal days, contributions to kids' college funds, mentorship programs, career advancement programs, on-site childcare, and women's groups, to name a few. Create a network of tools, resources, and pathways that support women in the industry to grow without worrying about the glass ceiling that has been above their heads for decades.

Other programs to consider are:

· Employee resource groups for women that support women in the current workplace environment

· Female-driven peer groups

· Education for personal development and career succession planning

· Mentoring programs that connect other male and female executives with up-and-coming female team members

Programs like these will help bring more women into the workforce and keep them there.?

Set a goal for getting more women into first-level management.?

There need to be more women in the promotion funnel in organizations worldwide. This has to be a focus. You need to set a goal to work toward it. Ask yourself, "How many women do I want to see at every level?" Just like MacKay Forums, who set a 50 percent female-member goal, you could do the same for gender diversity within your office. The first step to achieving gender diversity at the top is nurturing diversity at entry-level positions. Celebrity Cruises is another excellent example of an organization that supports and has committed great strides toward equality. According to Celebrity, just 2 percent of the world's mariners are women. But they're leading the way to change that and create a more diverse future in the industry. Celebrity has boosted the number of women working across their fleet from 3 percent to 22 percent in just four years.7 Make quality a focus, set a goal, and break gender barriers in your company.

Create a supportive culture that empowers employees to speak up.

Building and maintaining a safe environment in which women feel comfortable airing their concerns will advance your equality focus at a rapid speed. You can only fix what you know is broken. Give your female employees an outlet to speak up without repercussions. If you don't create a culture that supports women speaking up, they will silently trust you less, and your brand will suffer.

Review your job descriptions for culture, mission, qualifications, and language.

The qualifications you put on your job descriptions can also impact the number of women that apply for the position. You must think long and hard about what your organization requires for the role and then be creative about how you decide to communicate the requirements. Remember, men and women are different. We process information differently, and our perceptions of the same topic can vastly differ.?

How you outline the role in writing will affect the number of female candidates you have applying for the position. Research shows that when men look at a list of requirements, they feel confident enough to apply if they satisfy about 60 percent of the items. Conversely, women only feel sure enough to apply if they meet more than 100 percent of the qualifications. Look at the language used. Women react to a different type of language than men. Certain words in job descriptions can unintentionally discourage women from applying. For example, words that describe a sales position from a hunter's perspective—hungry and aggressive—don't resonate with a female candidate. A woman doesn't want to kill, eat, or pressure a potential customer. Women are expert relationship builders and want to be able to embrace their feminine side while doing this.?

Females want to partner with their clients, guide them through the sales process, consult, and be trusted advisors. Women want to improve their clients' lives and build connections with others on their team, so to attract female candidates, use words and phrases such as "create relationships," "earn trust," "inspire change," "be bold," "help others," "collaboration," "communication," "love for the industry," and "advise." Paying attention to these details can make all the difference in attracting qualified females to your company.

Get the ladies in your organization to share their stories.

Take a more personalized approach. Get your women talking and talking publicly (even on video) about all your brand does to embrace diversity and equality. Doing so will attract top female candidates and a broader female consumer base.? Kindra Hall, an expert storyteller, helps individuals and companies capture attention, close more sales, and blow up their brands through strategic storytelling. Kindra says, "People are naturally attracted to stories; they're memorable, and hearing them causes chemical changes in our brains that improve our focus and heighten our empathy."? Stories create a shared experience without the listener realizing they are putting themselves in the narrative. When your female employees share their stories, they open the door to future candidates to experience the work environment and culture before they even interview with your company.

If you decide to transform your culture, realize it is a big undertaking but well worth the effort. My advice? Take it one step at a time, but decide NOW that you want to make the shift. Being proactive will attract more female employees to your company, attracting (and keeping) more loyal female consumers to your brand.

#KatieMares #CustomHERExperience #SHEConomy #Diversity #Inclusion