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Fearless Female Conference 2018: Achieving gender equality at work

Written by: Cobb Digital
Published on: 25 May 2018

Fearless FemaleWe are thrilled to share that our first Fearless Female Conference, held in conjunction with The Skills Farm, took place to great success! Over 70 HR professionals, managers and senior leaders from local businesses attended the conference to join in the conversation of bringing gender equality to the workplace, through panel discussions and keynote presentations.

The audience heard from leading experts, discussing the importance of changing mind-sets to facilitate female progression and how organisations can implement culture-change to leverage existing female talent, including keynote speaker and Editor of Changeboard, Mary Appleton, on how HR professionals can steer the narrative of female progression away from cases of exception.

As well as opportunities to take part in discussion and pose questions to our line-up of experts, attendees took away some invaluable tips to work towards achieving a gender balance within their workplace. We’ve shared some of these actions below to help you promote a diverse organisational culture

Consider implementing unconscious bias training

Unconscious bias training is really useful for understanding the learned biases that we are not consciously aware of. Being aware of how our mind works in these situations will help managers and senior leaders to understand how their decision making may be impacted, and work towards making more objective decisions.

Review blind CVs

Similar to unconscious bias training, by taking names off CVs you will be better able to assess a candidate’s capability objectively without any predispositions clouding your judgement. Try it, you might be surprised with the results.

Have a mixed interview panel

It’s always good practice to ensure your interview panels are diverse, not just in terms of organisational or industry knowledge but also in representing gender. This also helps demonstrate your organisation or brand as committed to diversity and inclusivity.

Join a business or creative network

Be a part of something bigger and join a network based on promoting and educating women. Global networks such as SheSays hold free events and talks in different cities, as well as offering mentoring schemes to empower females within their professional lives.

Build diversity as a commitment within your strategy

A key part of any HR strategy will no doubt focus on attracting and retaining good people, as well as how to foster a culture that reflects your company values. By embedding inclusivity and diversity as a key value within this, you are outwardly demonstrating your commitments to key stakeholders.

After the success of the Fearless Females Conference, we are looking forward to holding more events that provide support to professionals and stimulate discussion around key issues within the employment industry.

Is your organisation committed to promoting a gender diverse workplace? If you are looking to expand your team with extraordinary talent from a diverse pool of local candidates, advertise for your future leaders via our job board.