The increasing focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has led many organizations to adopt and advocate for gender DEI. Today, most companies claim to have a strong commitment to gender, with distinct gender strategies being implemented and promoted as a part of the company’s culture. Despite this, the year-on-year participation of women in the workforce has been declining globally.
Over the years, the policies of organizations for female employees have been barely able to move the needle. The reason could be attributed to deep-rooted conscious and unconscious biases, lack of effective implementation, monitoring and tracking, and inadequate understanding and support. For gender strategies to work amidst the prevalent biases and challenges, we need to link the gender goals of our companies with incentives. Doing so will create responsibility and impetus for getting results from the policies being implemented.
As for investors, we must operate with a gender lens and implement gender strategies within our organizations and across our investment processes. We must identify gender goals for our firms, establish those goals as mandates to be achieved by our teams, and link the goals to our carried interests or other incentives. In the short term, this will motivate everyone to achieve gender goals, and in the long term, it’ll become a workplace culture.
