Friday, March 29, 2024
Home Women Business News The Key To Improved Gender Balance In The Workplace

The Key To Improved Gender Balance In The Workplace


To an outsider, perhaps one would assume that the world of automotive sales and technology is dominated by men. Perhaps it is—but not within Auto Trader.

Auto Trader UK ranks 7th in the Inclusive Top 50 Employer 2020/21 listings and is one of only three FTSE 100 companies to have 50:50 gender parity on its board—with this soon to be a 45:55 split with women holding the majority.

In a series of articles for International Men’s Day this year, the theme of which is ‘Better relations between men and women’, I asked Nathan Coe, CEO of Auto Trader, what drives him to focus on improving gender parity.

“Fundamentally, having diverse points of view makes our business better—and, as a firm, we make better decisions. A total of 51% of the cars we sell are to women and, if we are not representing them across our workforce, then we are only developing offerings and solutions for people like me.”

But gender balance offers more than the positives of better decision-making and greater representation of the customer base.

Taking action to hire, develop and retain more women leads to greater opportunities to employ the very best talent. Coe comments: “Greater diversity makes for stronger employee engagement and attracts the best talent.” In fact, the vast majority of its most recent graduate intake wanted to join the business because of its culture and the fact that it takes inclusion seriously.

A Commitment To Individual Difference

When Coe became CEO, he pinpointed a number of areas in which he wanted to make real progress for the business. One of those was diversity and inclusion.

Coe comments: “Diversity is not a side show. All of our business strategies are underpinned by talent, and talent is underpinned by diversity and inclusion.” Such commitment is evidenced in the firm’s KPIs reported to investors which include, alongside the financial and operational KPIs, cultural KPIs.

What drives Coe to champion this?

Central to his belief is a recognition that we are all individuals, with differing career needs at different stages of our lives—and men and women may need greater flexibility and options to support them. As an employer and as a leader, Coe sees it as his “responsibility to ensure the firm is inclusive and capable of adapting to support women throughout their career”.

Encouraging Diversity Starts Early On

Increased diversity has its roots in experiences before joining the organization. For Coe, this translates to a need to “focus doggedly on the female pipeline well before graduate program attraction campaigns. It is about getting more girls interested in technology and the world of automotive.”

Practically, this includes outreach to schools to run coding clubs for girls—or talking about the future of cars and the technology behind them. It means that girls get to hear about different career paths in the earliest stages of their education. It means they start to make informed choices about the options open to them.

And the education doesn’t stop there. The challenge, once hired, becomes one of retention.

Personalizing The Journey

Organizations need to help women to stay engaged and working when they hit certain points in their lives, which might otherwise see them feeling that work and life are out of alignment.

It requires, Coe says, being adaptable as a company, recognizing individuality and understanding that there is no single approach that will work for all women.

“It’s about personalization—asking and finding out what your people need and want at different times.”

One key enabler for Auto Trader has been its Women’s Network, which is one of many such networks at Auto Trader including disability and neurodiversity, age, multiculturalism and LGBT+. This was set up to ensure the firm has the right conversations to bring about a more inclusive workplace. The company has also set about changing its processes and systems, including policies around flexible working and opening up discussions about pay. It has introduced a diverse talent accelerator program, turning up the dial for those with high potential, offering the support they need and building this into daily working practice. Each employee also attends one and a half days of diversity and inclusion training.

The Responsibility Of The Leader

Auto Trader is taking action across the firm to support greater diversity at all levels. However, Coe is keen to point out that the firm still has a way to go. There is no silver bullet or quick fix to recruiting and retaining top talent, but he acknowledges the importance played by leadership in maintaining progress on the journey.

“Without doubt, change requires passion, empowerment and a belief right from the very top of the organization to make the change happen and to call out behavior or practice that is exclusionary. And this cascades. As CEO, I have a dozen or so on my team and they have a further 100 other leaders all making decisions on promotion and pay and supporting individuals with their individual requests and needs. They are the people making it happen.”

It is time for CEOs and leaders in other organizations to take up the challenge and re-evaluate their action towards improved career journeys for women.

Coe concludes: “It is a learning exercise for us all—and we need to recognize that. Too few at the top of organizations are talking passionately about this topic and yet we, as leaders, have a duty to ensure that women feel included and have the same access to careers that male colleagues have. We all need to start learning more: listening to podcasts; reading books; talking to our people; and taking action as much as we can.”



Source link

- Advertisement -

Must Read

Related News

- Supported by -