PIPELINES OR PIPEDREAMS

Why building the pipeline of women leaders is in a organisation’s best interest 

Recently I shared the concept of developing pipelines to a group of brilliant likeminded recruitment peers across the industry. 

MY CURIOUS

I put out there into the universe, ‘as you do’, a rhetorical question....

Is the current glass ceiling for women - that invisible barrier to advancement that women face at the top levels of the workplace - also a case of recruitment processes generally having a ‘leaky’ pipeline?

I’ve been reflecting a lot recently on this and whether our recruitment process contributes to the issue of advancing women in the workplace?! 

SCENE SET

We’re a small but ‘mighty’ team of three ‘hands on’ recruiters. Our motto is to: “stay curious, set an awesome standard on diversity with creative swagger”. 

In the last 2 years, we’ve been ‘going hard’ at diversity achieving a record breaking 56 percent hiring of diverse leaders in 2017/18 and already at our halfway mid year checkpoint, we’ve achieved an astonishing 55 per cent - a diverse leadership hire every 8 days. 

ALL SOUNDS GOOD....Right?

At a micro view, it’s she-amazing - I’m blessed with the most fantastic team - and….it’s been rewarding work. 

At the macro view this rate of progress will take us over 20 years for women to be evenly represented at a leadership level?! 

This has got me reflecting on the very issue of women advancement in the workplace…… 

Can we do more? Are we missing something right under our nose?

We’ve been so focused on external talent, what about the internal world? The universe of great people and hidden talent gems ?? 

We know we are sitting on a pool of strong high potential women - just be looking at our talent framework and 9 box ??. 

Rather than externally hiring, we’ve now turned our attention to internal pipeline advancement, mobility and recruitment. 

This is an absolutely essential step change and critical to address every aspect of the way we do business. It’s ambiguous, complex and somehow unreachable - that’s exactly what my team thrives on - let’s flip ourselves inside out and apply our external headhunting approach internally ??

In the last 12 months, we’ve set about fixing our current recruitment approach (with no budget) - this means that any recruiter can do this to make an impact!  

We’ve developed a new approach that allows us to discover and harness the power of women. 

WHAT DID WE LEARN? 

Simple...building a pipeline of women leaders must be at the heart ?? of your TA strategy, it’s in your company’s best interest. Total no brain ?? er! 

Throughout our recruitment process we observed promotional moves of aspiring men and women leaders. 

Getting all TA & recruitment ‘nerdy’ now, the recruiting metric data-set revealed some very interesting behaviours. Some that resonate with me as a woman and which I must rectify immediately....

FINDING THE TRUTH

According to our data, Women are twice as likely to ‘ace’ a recruitment process than men. From invite to assessment, at interview, offer and hire a constant and strong upwards trend of success. Whereas observing the same metrics for men, there’s a sharp difference and a constant downward trend. 

The outcome tells a very different narrative, 64 per cent of our aspiring leaders (men) are promoted versus 36 per cent (women). 

This got me thinking....we all know that companies with gender diversity outperform their competitors......

And, are we also seeing this in a recruitment process...talented women outperforming men........?

We’ve been studying this aspect of ‘social science’ to understand the ‘pivotal’ points at which women in our business move ahead or trail behind. 

Women aren’t dropping off the ladder in the recruitment process and our pipeline isn’t leaky....

THE GRAND REVEAL

 The issue in a nutshell is that women simply take ‘less career risk’ than men and these deep wired Psychological differences are one of the main reasons why women are not advancing and falling behind. 

SO WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM OUR MANBASSADORS?

 Looking at applications for sideways or lateral job moves provided further insight.. 

Lateral movement is a crucial point to career advancement to develop breath and depth - also known as ‘developing the dream mind skills set’ to ultimately land that Unicorn ?? job!!! The one that you secretly covet....’c-suite, ceo,etc...’

72 per cent our talented men made a job application for a ‘lateral’ move. Of these, nearly 30 per cent of senior men made multiple applications - sometimes at the same time!

Only 27 percent of women - 1 per cent prefer not to say, are prepared to make a ‘lateral’ career move. Less than 10 per cent of women made a multiple application.

Taking career risk is clearly a strength for men and one that we must all learn from.

We’ve all heard the following statistic: men apply for a job when they only meet 60 per cent, but women apply only if they meet 100 per cent of them.

This insight has created an ‘AHA moment’ across my team and a shift in focus to internal pipeline attraction and engagement. 

This year, we’ve turned our attention to internal talent discovery.

QUICK RECRUITMENT HACKS

We’ve also provided some recruitment hacks on reviewing our internal talent in LinkedIn projects to check skills profiling. Leadership spotlight events showcasing new roles have been well received. As well as checking un-submitted application statuses. Many are women who have second thoughts. Lastly, we’ve run six workshops partnering with our women’s staff network group to encourage our women to ‘lean in’.

Our biggest problem is simply that women are not making sufficient applications and or taking career risk. Learning from attitudes of men is essential. 

TIPS

Always say, ‘yes’ to opportunities and set yourself your own recruitment target to apply for at least 5 jobs. 5 is the golden rule as women are statistically likely to have a 5:1 chance of securing a dream role.

Set yourself a recruitment target for 2020, apply for sideways moves, upwards moves.

Dip your toe into the lake and become part of a pipeline, don't just chase pipe-dreams....go for it...

By Rebecca Foden

"I help leaders to make the most of talent. I am driven and creative and not afraid to have tough conversations. I also believe that people are more capable and valuable than they often give /get credit for. Whilst unlocking talent, I am trying to unlock my own. Follow me on LinkedIn and be part of a curious community that wants everyone to reach their fullest potential whatever the background :)"