How Digital Could Deliver Workplace Gender Equality in 25 Years

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By Aimee Hansen

Women-on-computerAn increasingly digital workplace may have brought debatable impacts such as the 24/7 work week and scattered listening, but according to Accenture’s latest findings, it also has the potential to bring global workplace gender equality a lot closer to reality.

Earlier this month, we wrote about how the United Nation’s International Women’s Day 2016 effort emphasized accelerating gender equality. A new report from Accenture entitled “Getting to Equal: How Digital is Helping Close the Gender Gap at Work,” asserts that digital is a key factor in accelerating gender equality in the workplace.

Accenture’s report finds that doubling the pace of “digital fluency” among women could double the speed of gender equality at work.

Rather than waiting until 2065, doubling the pace at which women become frequent users of technology would bring workplace gender equality in developed nations by 2040.

Rather than waiting until 2100, workplace gender equality could be brought forward in developing nations by 2060.

The Relationship Between Digital Fluency and Gender Equality

Accenture’s report comes as global talent shortages are being highlighted by the World Economic Forum as well as Manpower Group, while women remain an underrepresented presence that could become part of an evolving and flexible workforce increasingly enabled via technology.

Combining survey data (nearly 5,000 men and women in 31 countries) with published data on digital usage by country to create an econometric model, Accenture analyzed the effect of digital fluency on gender equality throughout the career cycle for an individual. Researchers also looked at the relationship between gender equality and digital fluency across nations.

In their report, digital fluency was correlated with women’s career achievement. The U.S., Netherlands, UK, and Nordic countries have both the highest digital fluency and rank among the top performers in workplace equality.

Large gender gaps in digital fluency exist in Japan, Singapore, France, and Switzerland, and closing them would increase gender equality in the workplace.

In countries like India and Indonesia, generally low levels of digital fluency, and gender gaps within them, are holding back women’s progress.

Nations like Saudi Arabia and Japan illustrate that digital fluency is not the only factor at work, since deep-seated cultural factors also hold gender gaps wider than expected based on the model.

Though it may be argued that over time digital, and its ability to amplify the voices that are so often disenfranchised, could play into challenging the cultural factors that disempower women.

Digital Fluency as an Accelerant, Especially For Women

Accenture concludes that digital skills are helping to narrow the workplace gender gap and level the playing field and that digital fluency acts as an accelerant in every stage of a woman’s career from education and employment to advancement because technology removes many of the barriers that prevent women from working more flexibly. Digital fluency helps men and women but the
the researchers of the report found that being digitally fluent held even stronger positive effects for women than for men.

Accelerating Education

The report showed that when men and women have the same level of digital fluency, women have achieved a higher rate of education.

Women are not simply becoming better educated than they were before. They’ve become better educated than men in 16 of the 31 countries.

Digital fluency played the greatest role in enabling women to access education in developing nations – with 68% of women saying Internet was important to their education (versus 44% in developed nations).

Accelerating Employment

Digital fluency allows for more flexibility in the workplace, which is helping to close the employment gap between men and women in many countries, as more women are more able to find and participate in work.

The report found that “While men and women alike are liberated by the balance that work flexibility affords, women appear to derive greater value from it.”

In the survey, 72% of women (and 68% of men) said that women’s employment opportunities increase as digital fluency increases, with nearly half of women reporting they used digital to access job opportunities and work from home.

Accelerating Advancement

While digital fluency also proved to help accelerate women’s career advancement, the relationship was less significant. The report found that “while digital fluency is having a positive impact on pay for both men and women, the gap in pay between genders is still not closing.”

What is changing is the expectations that it’s possible to close the gap within a foreseeable future, as nearly 60% of Millennial women aspire to be in leadership positions and feel skilled for it, and nearly 3/4 of respondents agreed “the digital world will empower our daughters.” Mind you, those digitally native daughters with better education than their male peers and expanded access to work of many forms across many countries.

According to Julie Sweet, Accenture’s group chief executive for North America, “This is a powerful message for all women and girls. Continuously developing and growing your ability to use digital technologies, both at home and in the workplace, has a clear and positive effect at every stage of your career.And it provides a distinct advantage, as businesses and governments seek to fill the jobs that support today’s growing economy.”

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Develop Yourself

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People around a laptopIf you wait for your employer, you might be waiting a long time.

Recently, over glasses of wine, it came up that many of my friends felt like they weren’t being developed by their companies.

“They think we don’t care about career development because they think we don’t care about our careers because we’re millennials. Millennials…such an HR term,” complained one of my friends, who is a consultant.

“At least if they decided to develop you, you’d be getting applicable skills,” said another friend, who leads corporate training programs and is questioning her career. “I want to change my career and I’m not sure how.”

“The only kind of development we get is access to a series of boring webinars that we have to watch in the HR conference room,” said another friend in a tech company. “I fell asleep during the last one.”

Why are companies not developing their employees?
  • Maybe they think you don’t care.
  • Maybe they don’t care.
  • Maybe they think they are developing you, but don’t know how.
  • Maybe they’re too busy.
  • Maybe they’re only focused on developing their favorite star employees, and don’t have time for everyone else.
  • Maybe someone in the HR department or in management doesn’t like you.
  • Maybe they only develop men, and not women (in which case, you might have a lawsuit on your hands, or need to look for a new job).

It sucks to stay at a job and not be developed. If you are at a job for a number of years, you should need to update resume every six months with new skills, projects, tasks, and reports. If you don’t find yourself doing that, well, you have an issue. I find myself regularly logging into LinkedIn to post my latest presentations, updated skills, and reports.

So you’re not being developed. Or maybe you want a new career, and don’t want to bother focusing on being developed in your current organization/role. Here are some tips on how you can develop yourself. Ultimately, you’re the one who cares most about your career, so you should be the one taking charge of it.

  1. Look at your career in the long term. Where can you go? Where do you want to go? Where could you possibly go? If you really need help, contact a career counselor. Your alumni or career services office of your former university might be able to assist you with resume revision, career counseling, and networking opportunities.
  2. Do you want to/Are you willing to live someplace else? This might open up or limit your options, depending. If you need to or want to move, voice this to your organization to see how this may change your career. Affiliate yourself with local professional organizations (even if it’s just online) to connect and network.
  3. Don’t get bogged down by negativity. Yes, maybe you hate your job, or your career, or your boss, or your HR department. But stop complaining about them and wishing they would all just quit or go away won’t help you. Accept that things are the way they are. Try to change them – by looking for a new job, and until that happens, focus on developing yourself.
  4. Are there any industry/professional associations you could be affiliated with? Join them. Even if opportunities are lacking in your organization, externally you could find mentors, training programs, networking opportunities, conferences, grants, and workshops crucial to developing your skills and career. See how you could be involved – volunteer for events, offer to give presentations, see how you can contribute and be a part of growing your skills and your career.
  5. How can you further your education? Whether it’s getting a master’s degree, enrolling in a certificate program, or taking a weekend course that could develop your skills and career further, never stop learning. Check in with your HR department for reimbursement policies and any class recommendations they have.
  6. Ask for more at work –from new people. Maybe you’re limited in how you can develop in your department. Talk to your colleagues from other departments, and see if you can help them with any projects, and develop new skills. Maybe HR has some ideas about how you can assist with staffing gaps. Offer to do presentations – public speaking skills are very important (even if you hate it!).
  7. Improve your people management skills. Schedule one-on-ones with direct reports to check in and see how you can help them more. Ask if there are ways you can improve and help them. If you don’t have anyone to manage, ask if you can. If there are no opportunities, create an internship program to give you much-needed people management skills. When working across teams and when managing projects, show off your skills and leadership talent.
  8. Work on general development skills. Maybe you’re a solo librarian at a large law firm, and they’re not interested in funding classes for you on improving search strategy or copyright updates. See if they will stand behind you as you take classes on managing staff, time management, productivity, budgeting, and career management. It’s always a good idea to have a few ideas of your own picked out, but check in to see if your managers and/or HR department have any ideas of your own.
  9. Are there language skills you can develop?Learning a new language is always a great thing to do – it challenges your mind, it’s fun, it’s a great connect with people, it helps when you travel, and it’s a great thing to add to your resume. Check out if your job will pay for it, and/or if they will let you take classes on company time. I initially began studying Spanish because of my own personal interests, and have since read reports/articles in Spanish for work, answered information requests in Spanish, and fact-checked a report in Spanish. Check out reviews of local language schools, or your local colleges, and join Meetup groups as a way to practice further.
  10. Start an Internship/Volunteer. If you really want a new career, don’t jump ship before experiencing it for yourself. I will never thank my mother enough for forcing me to be a candystriper when I was in high school after I said I wanted to be a physical therapist. Working at a hospital quickly made me realize that while I loved helping people, I didn’t want a career in the medical field. I volunteered another six years, and loved it, but knew it wasn’t a lifelong career for me. Bonus for internships: you might make some great connections for a future career.
  11. Find mentors, inside and out. The most unlikely person in your organization can turn out to be a great mentor, and maybe even ultimately, a sponsor to help advance your career internally. Mentors can give you great advice on how to take your career going forward, which new skills to focus on, how to build new skills, organizations to join, opportunities to pursue, how to navigate career politics, and just serve as a sounding board. Can’t find a mentor? Be your own!
  12. Don’t just find a mentor – be a mentor. Mentor someone just starting out their career, or even a student in the field. Former mentees of mine still email me for advice, years later. It makes me feel good that I’ve made a difference in their careers.
  13. Update your resume and LinkedIn page all the time. Even if you’re not looking for a job, you should be always be regularly updating. A friend who unexpectedly lost her job when her company shut down their North American headquarters office told me, “The worst thing is that now I’m trying to remember everything I did for the last six years.” Also, should you suddenly decide to update everything on your LinkedIn profile at once, this could be a bit suspicious to your coworkers/managers. I use LinkedIn as a place to find and promote my speaking engagements and articles, so I constantly update my profile.
  14. Actually use LinkedIn. A biologist friend recently confided in me, “I don’t really see the purpose of LinkedIn.” Use it to see if any of your friends have connections at your dream companies; use it to stay connected to former classmates and those in your field. Join relevant groups; they’re great for asking questions and getting a fresh outsider response.
  15. Connect with recruiters. If you’re looking for work, connect with a recruiter. Make sure they know exactly what you are looking for so they can make the most of their time and your time. They should also be aware of your latest skills.
  16. Even if you don’t want to leave, check out other jobs in your field. What are the required skills and experience? What can you work on? What should you focus on developing? Where are your gaps? During a check-in with your manager, ask to fill in some of those gaps.
  17. Network with a purpose. Most of us find networking awkward – standing there, clumsily unsure of how to start conversations. Ahead of time, create goals: think about what you want to accomplish at a networking event. Create an elevator pitch. I like to go into networking events with some questions. “What’s new in your office?” “How do you handle stress with your job?” “What’s your favorite thing about your job?” You can talk about what you do, and mention what kind of opportunities you are seeking. I was offered a speaking engagement after updating an acquaintance about the speaking I had been doing.

Really, when it comes down to it, developing your career is your responsibility. It would be great if your employer would help you, and really, any good employer will, but if it’s not happening, you need to make it happen. Develop yourself: it’s the best thing you can do for your career.

Writers bio:
Cheryl Yanek is a writer currently traveling around India, where she is also studying yoga. She regularly writes on career issues, ultrarunning, feminism, pregnancy, yoga, food, and wine. She has been published in many places including Skirt Collective, Trail Runner, The Huffington Post,  Ultrarunning, Manifest-Station, Thought Catalog, and New York Wine Events. She is also the Race Director of the Burning Man Ultramarathon.

 

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Executive Presence – Do It Your Way For More Trust With Your Team

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How-to-build-a-teamThere are many books and “experts” on executive presence out there, many of them keen to tell you how to dress and how to act. My take on this is simple, just be yourself. Authenticity and being truthful about who you are has been shown to augment trust between people and people make the work go around. This has been shown especially with LGBT managers.

Now we all know that if you are a woman sometimes you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t ( see every female leader who ever lived, currently Hillary Clinton could tell you about this in detail I am sure) so the least you can do is not assimilate to behaviors that feel odd to you. However, you can be interculturally competent in any situation- which means reading the room while doing it your way!

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work

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Working mothers – find the company that makes your life easier!

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Working motherSo, having recently become a parent myself, I now finally understand some of the challenges of being everywhere at once that so many readers have told me about over the years. There are many ways to be great at work, great at home and maintain your sanity. Carol Evans (former CEO of Working Mother Magazine) wrote a great book in 2006 called “This is How We Do It: The Working Mother’s Manifesto” and in 2016 it is still one of the most practical books I have read on the topic. Carol is a friend of mine and we often discuss the fact that some companies more than others have led the way for working parents to thrive not just survive of both genders with innovative policies that they are continuing to develop. There are some personal choices to make and that is, yes very individual at times but I say we need to stop scrutinizing women’s choices. The best advice I can give you is to examine how family friendly your workplace is, because although some positions are rigid with their requirements, you would be surprised in reality what flexibility can become a reality in the near future

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work

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Catalyst Honors Gap for Pay Equity, Leadership Diversity

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diverse workforceBy Melissa Anderson

Gap, Inc. was honored last week with a Catalyst award for its achievements in building diversity and inclusion at the company. Not only has the company made strides in increasing the number of women in key leadership positions, it has also focused on improving opportunities for women of color.

Between 2007 and 2015, the company has increased the representation of women reporting directly to the CEO from 33% to 77%. Forty percent of those top level reports are women of color. Similarly, in the same time frame, the number of women serving on Gap’s board has increased from one to four, two of whom are women of color.

Women also lead four of the company’s five brands, and since 2007, the representation of women at the vice president level has increased from 44% to 49.7%.

“Equality is engrained in everything we do. For us, it was not only the right thing to do, but also a business imperative,” said Dan Briskin, VP of Global Employee Relations and HR Shared Services, Gap Inc., during a panel at Catalyst’s annual conference on Wednesday.

The company’s award-winning diversity initiative, “Women and Opportunity,” was made up of three key pillars, according to Heather Robsahm, Senior Director of Talent Management for Banana Republic, one of Gap’s brands. These include career mobility, results oriented work environments (ROWE), and pay equity.

The vast majority (83%) of Gap’s current female executives are promoted from within, and many, like Robsahm, come from the company’s field operation. As part of its career mobility pillar, Gap has created career readiness programs to ensure employees are able to build their skills and set their career trajectory.

“We have a deep bench for women who are poised the lead the company into the future,” Robsham says.

Instituting the ROWE has helped the company improve accountability and engagement, Robsahm says, and demonstrated that people can own their time and still be successful at their jobs.

Finally, in 2014, the company affirmed it had achieved gender pay equity across its global workforce of 150,000 people. When the company set out to track its workforce pay, executives expected they might come across some gaps, so the company set aside some money to make up the difference in pay for women. But after looking at the data and partnering with an external firm to verify the results, the company found it had no significant gaps and hadn’t needed to tap into the extra cash.

“When you are focused on paying people for the work they do, and you are focused on grappling to get the best talent and focused on paying the market rate for that talent, [pay equity] naturally follows,” Briskin said.

This was the first year Catalyst named only one award winner, which, conference organizers said, emphasizes the impressiveness of Gap’s achievements.

Leadership and Courage

Also speaking at the event was Marillyn Hewson, CEO and Chair of Lockheed Martin, the defense and technology firm that took in over $46 billion in revenue last year.

In a Q&A with Catalyst CEO and President Deborah Gillis, Hewson described her views on diversity. Several years ago, she noted, Lockheed’s senior management realized it needed to get more women and minorities into its leadership pipeline.

“It starts with leadership setting the tone from the top,” Hewson said. She emphasized the importance of taking meaningful action to build diversity.

Today 20% of Lockheed’s leadership and a third of its board are women. But earlier in her career, things were different, Hewson recalled. That’s why today she places such importance on mentoring other women, she said.

She recalled often being the only woman in the room coming up in her career and noted how difficult it can be to deal with negative comments or unintentional slights when there’s no one to share them with.

At one point she was greeted in an all-male meeting with a comment that the others were glad she’d arrived because they ‘needed a pretty face’ in the room. “I said, ‘I guess I’m in the wrong room because I have other things to do,’” she remembered.

“You can be caught off guard, and having the chance to talk to other women about those things makes a difference.”

Hewson chairs the diversity and inclusion council at Lockheed Martin, and requires business leaders to meet with her once per quarter to discuss their strategies and metrics on diversity. She expects them to share information on hiring, promotion and attrition with respect to the demographics of their division. The company has also recently made an effort to incorporate white men into the conversation on diversity, she revealed. Previously, this group had felt locked out of diversity efforts, she said, which was presumably doing more harm than good.

An audience member asked Hewson to discuss a quote by Gloria Steinem: “Women still require an adjective and males don’t.”

When will a woman CEO simply be referred to as a CEO, she inquired.

“This is my fourth year as a CEO, and I don’t get the woman question as much anymore,” Hewson said. “That’s why I want to talk about being a leader.”

She encouraged women who aspire to be leaders to be courageous and take difficult assignments that showcase their capabilities and experience.

“Importantly, you bring the character and integrity that the team needs,” she said.

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5 tips to being happier at work

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ProfessionalWoman-comfort-zoneLook, we cannot all be in our dream jobs (or can we?) but while we are working on that, here are three tips to be happier and more productive at work.

  • Find your passion in the small things. Which tasks are enjoyable to do and how can you do more of them?
  • Find kindred spirits to connect with at work. People are happier at work if they have positive interactions with other people so try and find common ground with co-workers on professional topics as well as personal connections. If you so inclined, join an employee network or committee because this is also a good way to know about future opportunities in other teams etc.
  • Enjoy your life outside work so that you can plow through tough days knowing that work is just one element that you need to feel wonderful about. (This last point is often difficult for so many of us who are so invested in our careers but try it, smell the roses more.)

Good luck!

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work

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What We Can Learn from Powerful Women, Past and Present

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diverse-women-across-the-globeMarch is Women’s History Month, which gives us even more of a reason to recognize powerful women, both past and present, who continually inspire us to move forward. Regions, a bank that features a Women and Wealth initiative to educate, equip and empower women, is celebrating Women’s History Month by honoring the contributions of women who have made a difference in countless facets of life.

From media entrepreneurs to leaders impacting their own communities, we can learn from these women’s successes and apply their knowledge to improve our own careers and lives. Here are some key examples of inspirational leaders and their advice for reaching – and exceeding – your goals:

Develop Your Leadership Skills with a Mentor

As the president and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, Pam Iorio is a shining example of women leaders who are making a difference in their own communities and beyond. Her gift for leadership shows not only through her work with Big Brothers Big Sisters, but also in her past career as Mayor of the City of Tampa and her tenure as leader-in-residence at the John H. Sykes College of Business at the University of Tampa. The author of Straightforward: Ways to Live and Lead, Iorio delivers a strong message about the importance of developing leadership skills. Her message: Learn to lead yourself well so you can, in turn, lead others.

Regions Bank commends Iorio’s work to change communities across America through the power of mentoring and recognizes that career-oriented women can grow and learn from this inspiration. One way women can develop their own leadership skills is by cultivating a relationship with a female mentor

Define Your Personal Brand

Wendy Lane Stevens, the founder and president of national public relations firm LANE, advises women to spend time developing a personal brand that reflects your core beliefs. Every day and in nearly every situation – board meetings, conversation with clients, coffee with girlfriends – your personal brand is on display through your actions, words and decisions. It’s never too late to create a personal brand or modify your current one. Stevens suggests these steps:

Brainstorm and write down 30 to 40 words that describe who you are and the traits you like about yourself or want to improve. After thoughtful consideration, narrow the list to about six words.
Compare your descriptions to the words that three of your role models would use to describe themselves. Use this as a gauge to refine your list.

Ask a family member or close friend to review your words. Are they aspirational and achievable? “You want these words to be authentic and transparent, so you want honest feedback,” Stevens says.

Use the words to develop an elevator speech that describes who you are and what you believe – this becomes your personal motto. Keep it near you – like on your computer or on your phone so you’re constantly reminded of your core values or brand.

Every several months, grade yourself on how you’ve integrated your values and brand into your life.

No matter what your profession, you can glean valuable insights from smart, successful women all around you, including all of the powerful females Regions Bank is recognizing this March. If you’re interested more career insights and guidance for women in the workforce, Regions has shared with us some additional resources:

For Entry-Level Women – Learn How To Budget After Landing Your First Job. When you’re starting your first job, it can be difficult to learn how to budget your money. Regions shares four tips to help you separate your wants from your needs and set yourself up for financial success.

For Female Business Owners – Learn About, and Leverage, the Resources Available to Women and Minorities in Business. The government helps foster growth for women and minority business owners in part by offering tax breaks to companies that work with these businesses. Make sure you thoroughly understand these programs, and take the steps necessary to qualify for them.

For Moms in the Workforce – Balancing Career and Home. When it comes to work/life balance, find the right fit for you rather than an equal balance.

This article was sponsored by Regions Private Wealth Management.

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Know your values and know their values when interviewing for a new job

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business meeting at office deskWould you apply to work at the meat factory if you are a strict vegetarian? Most people would say no (dire circumstances excepting), and some people would say yes. This is obviously an extreme example of how our values control which job we do and who we will happily work for.

However, how work gets done in your team or firm often is to do with values (the leader or manager’s values mostly). When interviewing for a new job it is sometimes hard to ascertain what the team or company culture is. Ask these three questions to get closer to the answers that otherwise remain hidden to the naked eye:

  • What is the trait or behavior that makes people succeed here?
  • What is the most challenging part of working here?
  • Value x (insert your value) e.g. fairness, is important to me- how does that rank here in the top 3 lived values and is that stated anywhere in the mission or charter?

If you can get honest answers to these questions, you will get a handle on the culture and of course you need to know your values also!

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work

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Beating Bias: How Technology Is Changing the Recruiting Game

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women at computer
By Aimee Hansen
The hardest part of diversity can be the “how.” How do you stay awake to your own unconscious bias? Can you?

With no evidence that it’s possible to eliminate unconscious bias, a rising trend on the crossroads of diversity and tech is to mitigate bias with the help of technology tools.

New apps are helping to eliminate and filter the blindspots in the communications and decision-making that go into recruitment, hiring and promotion.

If You Can’t Stop it, Mitigate It

Diversity training helps individuals to become aware of their own bias, but unconscious bias, by definition, often evades our awareness to blindly drive our decisions. It can’t necessarily be trained away.

As Tony Greenwald, a University of Washington psychology professor who conducted seminal research on unconscious bias said, “Understanding implicit bias does not actually provide you the tools to do something about it.”

While increasing awareness of unconscious bias can enable individuals to be a bit more conscious of their own thought patterns and actions, it can also make bias socially normalized, which can backfire by condoning stereotyping.

We’re all doing it, right? If everybody is guilty, then is anyone?

One place where bias famously runs riot is in Silicon Valley. As Vivian Giang in Fast Company writes, “the percentage of underrepresented minorities is so low, (Silicon Valley) employers shouldn’t trust their own judgment anymore.”

But the dearth of diversity in tech town has recently catalyzed a booming counter-effect in app development.

As Ellen Huet writes in Forbes, unconscious bias has become the newest target in Silicon Valley and “demand for bias-busting solutions, in the form of consulting firms and anti-bias hiring software, has shot through the roof.”

Want Diversity? Watch Your Language

Something as seemingly innocuous as a job listing can bring bias into the hiring process through turning some candidates on and others away.

For example, research has shown that women are more drawn to/less threatened by companies that emphasize growth and development rather than boasting they hire the most awesome talent.

Two examples of companies who get the power and influence of words in the hiring process are Textio and Unitive, both of which have created software that tackle workplace bias in hiring and recruiting in “real time”.

Co-founder and CEO of Textio, Kieran Snyder, is a PhD in linguistics, who also researches gender bias in office dynamics. According to Textio, “the future of writing is knowing how well your words will work before anyone else reads them.”

Textio Talent, which has been used by companies like Twitter, Microsoft, Starbucks and Square, is “like a very smart word processor” that helps to predict how your documents, such as job listings and candidate e-mails, will perform.

As you write, the software highlights phrases, calls out their potential impact, and suggests alternative choices to appeal to a wider range of job seekers.

Textio has found that “proven track record” means more men will apply, “passion for learning” will attract more women, “mentoring” is generally more attractive than “coaching”, and “high performer” is more widely appealing than “rock star.”

There’s even an attraction difference between “manage a team” (more male) versus “develop a team” (more female). The tool also highlights when you’re just talking corporate jargon such as “synergy,” which makes listings less popular.

Snyder told Fast Company, “Everybody hates that language, but underrepresented people hate it more, probably because it’s a cultural signifier of some kind. It sort of communicates, this is an old-boy’s network kind of company.”

Take The Bias Out of Resumes & Interviews

Research that has shown that applicants with names that sound African-American have a 14% lower call-back rate. When it comes to tackling bias in hiring, developers are also focusing in on the resume and interview process.

Unitive has created an app that helps with creating word-optimized job postings, as well as resume reviewing and interview structuring, helping hiring managers monitor their decision-making and mitigate the effect of bias throughout.

The technology requires hiring managers to first “pre-commit” to what they most wish to see from an applicant, and presents resumes stripped of bias-triggering details like name and gender. Through the resume and interview process, the app reminds the manager of the key pre-committed criteria they choose.

In Fortune, Unitive Founder and CEO Laura Mather explains, ”We found a way to operationalize psychological findings so that hiring managers avoid bias as much as possible,” explains Mather.

It’s as much as about efficient hiring, and efficient hiring lends itself to more diversity. According to NPR, when cybersecurity firm RedSeal wanted to expand its employee base to increase women and minority representation, the CEO brought in Unitive to help filter out bias.

As a result, the firm received 30% more job applications, and the percentage of female engineers doubled. The candidate pool both increased and diversified. The technology helped to move away from “culture-fit”, breaking the mold on who fits into the company.

Unitive Founder and CEO Laura Mather told NPR that research shows “getting in different perspectives into your company makes your company more innovative, more profitable, more productive.” Mather said, ”All kinds of really great things happen when you stop making decisions based on how much you like the person’s personality.”

The Blind Audition

Another firm, GapJumpers helps remove bias from the hiring process for tech talent through blind auditions, just as blind auditions cracked the orchestra world open for female musicians. Candidates are given a challenge related to the job, rather than submitting a resume, which gives clues to gender and race. Not only is the process less biased, it allows those hiring to see how a candidate delivers.

Blendoor is just one other example of a new app which connects candidates and recruiters with faceless and nameless profiles, with a Tinder-like interface.

Nicki Gilmour, Founder of theglasshammer and organizational psychologist emphasizes that new technology is a valuable part of the equation in addressing unconscious bias. ”Like any behavioral change project, but especially anything to do with habits, assumptions and stereotypes, many parts of the system need to support the change structurally, to make individual change easier.”

”I also feel executive coaching is important as assumptions can be part of the cultural wallpaper and engrained,” Gilmour commented. “When they are interwoven with individual value sets that might be traditional to start with, making the unconscious conscious is only the beginning of this work.”

If You Talk the Talk, Try the Technology

More and more start-ups are entering the space of developing the technology that filters bias out of hiring efficiency and diversity, and current players have plans to expand beyond hiring to addressing promotions and reviews.

As the “how”’ of diversity becomes increasingly demystified and tangible, companies have a chance to do with unconscious bias what they would do with any inhibiting factor to their business: bring in the tools to address it.

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International Women’s Day

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women smilingInternational Women’s Day known as IWD is on Tuesday 8th March this year and we have great coverage from our writers, our clients and our partners all month long.

The career tip of the week has a distinct hint of counting our blessings as we look at the broader scope of women everywhere. My advice today is to get out of the weeds and do some big picture perspective taking today. Never mind the nitty gritty at work, list the 3 regular tasks that you enjoy most at work currently. Now look ahead at what you want to achieve in the next 18 months. Are you on track to increase the number of things that you enjoy doing? If so, excellent! if not, time to think about what is your next move to improve your work life and while you are at it, take a look at the big picture also. What can you commit to doing to make your life overall better and more fulfilling?

Check theglasshammer.com all month for our International Women’s Day coverage and our usual selection of excellent profiles.

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work

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