Giving Compass' Take:

• Fiona Dawson argues that by making our workplaces more gender inclusive we will ultimately be able to improve business performance.

• Seeing that gender equity lens has benefits, how can more women and men work together to create gender equitable practices in the workplace?

• Here's an article discussing ways to dismantle gender inequality. 

I have been in business now for 30 years, and have always believed that women represent an incredibly powerful yet still untapped resource. The tragedy is that there is no shortage of talent or ambition among women in the workplace. All too often, however, women’s career progression can come to a standstill, the most notable being when they reach middle management.

Data from the UK shows that 73% of entry-level roles are occupied by women, yet this only translates into 34% of female managers, directors and senior officials.   If we want to unblock our talent pipelines, we need stronger interventions at a business enterprise level to change workplaces and organizational cultures, and these changes must be led from the top.

Mars partnered with the UK Women’s Business Council last year to create ‘The Pipeline Effect’, a toolkit for enabling gender parity beyond middle management. In it, we identify obstacles to women’s progress mid-career, of which a lack of role models was one. There is an important need for more female role models of all ages and levels who are approachable and relatable.

I have experienced that diversity enables better collective decision-making – at the moment my Global Management team has a strong gender split and representation of nine different nationalities across 11 roles.

Read the full article about gender as the new diversity by Fiona Dawson at TriplePundit.