Who Runs the World?!

August 26th marks Women’s Equality Day in the United States. This date commemorates the 1920 certification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, granting women the right to vote. However it wasn't until 1965, when the Voting Rights Act was passed, that more barriers were removed from preventing many African American women and other women of color from being able to cast their ballot. We’ve come a long way since 1920 but there is still work to do to ensure global equality for women.?

As talent practitioners, we’ve seen seismic shifts in the workforce. Notably, millions of?women?who lost their jobs in the pandemic have yet to return to work, even though the economy has improved. Employers committed to building a diverse workforce must contend with fewer women and more competition. So, how do we differentiate ourselves??

Every company I have joined has asked me to build a diversity recruiting function. My first question is: Can I see the diversity strategy and presentations you are giving to the board, executive team? Invariably, there is a nice visual of the prongs of diversity leading with hiring, promoting, developing, and retaining (or some subset of these tenants). I always ask to reverse that order to retaining, developing, promoting, and hiring. It is a small change, and it illustrates that we can bring diversity into the hiring funnel but, if we can’t keep who we hire happy, retain and develop them AND tell their stories externally…our work to recruit & hire them is for naught. In my last post, I wrote about our culture @ Medallia; I believe that diversity and inclusion starts internally with a solid executive commitment. Luckily, when I joined Medallia- these commitments had already been made, and the DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) team had already started to lay this exact groundwork. We have invested in our nine global ERGs, providing each community funding for events, speakers, and professional development opportunities. We also launched our ERG leader recognition program, rewarding our community leaders with compensation for their valuable contributions to our culture.?

Our women’s community is one of these great communities which is very active and growing. This group has hosted events focused on networking both internally and externally, as well as hosted joint events with other communities, such as a wellness event in conjunction with Q-field, Medallia’s LGBTQ+ community, during Pride Month. As a result of these and other internal efforts, Medallia was just named #3 of The Top CEO’s for Women!

On this upcoming Women’s Equality Day, we’re taking it a step further and inviting you to hear from some amazing women @ Medallia. Of course, I wish you could hear from all of them- our Exec staff is nearly 40% women! In this session, we’ll dive into non-technical careers in tech (Sales, Mktg, etc.) with our very own Elizabeth Carducci (our amazing Chief Revenue Officer!) and several other dynamic women doing big things here. We hope you can join us to celebrate the advancements we’ve made so far and hear more about how we plan to keep the progress going.

RSVP to our event here and see you there! Virtually, of course.