Gender Diversity

5 Ways Companies Can Support Women’s Inclusion in Labour Markets

The pandemic is damaging the progress towards gender equality at work. According to the World Economic Forum’s (2021) Global Gender Gap Report, 5% of employed women lost their job compared to 3.9% of men, and less women were hired into executive or senior roles in 2020 as Broom (2021) clarifies.

Through my experience as the Founder of a solutions-based platform for gender balance at work, I got to know of initiatives that I think can help companies close the gap caused by the pandemic faster and potentially accelerate gender equality in workplaces as a result.

What can companies do to support women at work? And how can companies take gender equality to the next level beyond the pandemic?

Q&A With Antoinet Van Dalen On How HR Departments Can Support Women’s Day

As everyone into the topic of Gender Equality knows, March 8th is Women’s Day. This annual event is dedicated to spreading awareness about gender equality and women’s rights around the globe, and as every Human of HR knows, it’s a great day to reflect on the issues women have faced throughout history in the world of work.

We had recently spoken to Antoinet Van Dalen, Founder of Fireside, on how we are supporting women’s employment and about the importance of Digital Entrepreneurship in times of Covid-19. Knowing she is an advocate for Gender Equality in European workplaces, we thought we would catch up with her again and ask her how Human Resources Departments around the world should support women at work on March 8th (and beyond) after a turbulent year for gender equality. Read the following Q&A to find out how you can take action.

Gender Diverse Hiring Practices: closing the gap between companies & candidates

Through my experience as a founder of a solutions-based platform for workplace gender balance in the tech sector, I regularly speak with companies about their challenge to hire more women. I work to solve the challenges that arise when hiring women in positions where they are underrepresented at one hand, and more specifically, with female job seekers who would like to get hired in those positions (for instance at top management level) on the other hand.

Even though there are less women in certain fields (where upskilling or reskilling of women is required*) or at top management level, we cannot say that there are no women available at all or say that companies do not want to hire more gender diverse teams.