How Long Until the Gender Inequity Vaccine

what on earth

is happening with gender equity in the

workplace

as a result of the pandemic

in 2019 the first case of coronavirus

was identified in wuhan china

less than a year later we have several

vaccines that are around

95 percent effective an astonishing

achievement by any measure right

that within a year of a new virus that

has unleashed a global pandemic

and that required such a complex set of

steps

from research to developing testing and

producing a vaccine

we already are in the middle of the

process of vaccinating millions of

people around the world

in contrast gender inequity in the

workplace a decades-old issue

remains unresolved as if we couldn’t

apply

research-driven solutions to a social

problem

as we do to a public health issue

but make no mistake gender inequity is

not a woman’s

issue just like the covet virus didn’t

just affect a community in a faraway

land

gender inequity infects our culture and

everyone in our society it’s a global

pandemic

and it also needs an urgent vaccine we

were barely making any progress before

covet

and now the latest studies show that

that little progress may be wiped out as

a result of the extraordinary demands

being placed on women

let me give you a list of symptoms

linked to the spreading of the pandemic

of gender inequity

being in charge of everyone all the time

whether they are leaders or individual

contributors and even if some of them

had helped before or if their kids were

in school during work hours

women now have to juggle the blended

environment of remote work from home

having no time to reset or to be alone

as a result of working remotely the

little reset time

we used to have during our commute has

evaporated

and because of new responsibilities most

women have no time for themselves

something that has become quite

alienating

making less so quitting more as women’s

salaries

are historically lower than their male

partners if there’s a household choice

to be made regarding who will give up

their job and take care of the home and

the family

it’s usually the woman who steps back

with withstanding disproportionate

impact

non-white women and women with different

abilities

are being impacted much more than white

women

and are quite often micromanaged by

bosses who are still not ready

to practice remote leadership and

although the new normal

is affecting absolutely everybody we

still see

a larger percentage of female talent

affected

one in three mothers are ready to scale

back or step

out of the workplace altogether 39

percent of senior women

state that they are burnt out compared

to 29 percent of senior men

and 54 percent of senior women confess

to being exhausted

compared to 41 of senior men

but despite the fact that gender

inequity in the workplace is quite dire

there are some great opportunities we

should take advantage of in order to

speed up

a treatment the end of the corner office

this coveted perk to which few women had

access before the pandemic

has been democratized as most key

decisions are now being made

in the kitchen an environment where most

women

play as locals we have already seen how

effective both women and men can be from

the new corner office

a challenging digital and physical space

and that’s why i decided to have this

talk

from my corner office update the

requirements to be an executive

the generalized stay-at-home situation

has affected

everyone from senior executives to

entry-level associates

allowing for a shift in the old belief

that to be an executive

a person had to be physically in the

office and be able to travel a lot

something that often excluded women

leaders have become human having their

own kids

throw a tantrum on camera during

conference calls

has humanized leaders who used to be

perceived as not having to deal with

everyday life issues as everyone else

they have tacitly given permission to

women to openly perform their many roles

including being mothers and caretakers

by removing the stigma leaders have

enabled everyone to share their own

reality

leaders are personally invested in

supporting their teams

as they become more aware of the

circumstances of their various team

members

leaders are customizing their support to

make sure

they don’t lose female and diverse

talent so they are making themselves

much more available to address

individual challenges

and growth potential than they were ever

before

leveling the playing field for all

remote workers

when in the past there was an unwritten

hierarchy that devalued people

calling in in favor of those who worked

at headquarters

now everyone’s in the same boat and

because in the past

women took advantage of the remote work

benefit more often than men

they used to be the ones who suffer most

of the consequences

so what can we do to propel a global

response

when nobody knows what the future holds

at the redshift movement one of the

research and development solutions we’ve

been investing

a lot of time and energy in is fostering

design

for gender inclusion inside

organizations

based on the research of dr iris bonnet

of harvard university

and we have also been implementing some

very successful concrete solutions

let me share three of them taking a

visible stand

for gender inclusion a few years ago we

launched

redshift tuesday an ongoing thriving

initiative

that proposes a day of the week for

people to wear red shoes and accessories

to normalize the conversation on gender

inclusion

and invite people in a fun

non-confrontational way

to come up with concrete ways to

increase female leadership

at the highest levels of organizations

the goal is to aim for a global leap of

consciousness

so that overnight our firms reflect the

makeup of society

we push towards our goal with concrete

ownable actions like that of wearing a

visual reminder every week

listening intently to act fittingly

with our allyship circles we apply a

very specific method

for having courageous conversations

among a diverse group of people

from different backgrounds and

hierarchies in the company so that in

the very

act of having the conversation we’re

leveling the playing field and

everyone feels heard and a vital part of

solving the problem

it’s a way of giving leaders a chance at

empathetic listening

so as a result they can offer tailored

solutions to their team members

remembering that inclusion is not on

pause back in march 2020 when the

pandemic hit

we proactively rolled out inclusion is

not on pause

to put even more focus on the fact that

if we took our eyes

off the ball gender inclusion would

suffer greatly

so we created another set of tactics

individuals and organizations could

implement

like digital backdrops to help people

make a statement during their virtual

calls

they serve as an invitation for anyone

who needs to discuss a particular

situation

to approach those displayed in the

backdrop and we also created snackable

content for everyone to remain

vigilant now i’ve shared here what the

redshield moment is doing

so we can co-create solutions because

unlike with covid

where we got a vaccine in less than a

year of the first case

despite all the research that has been

done for decades

around what works to reach gender equity

in the workplace

the vaccine for gender inequity has not

yet been invented

so we must take a similar collaborative

approach

join our labs and use our data-driven

solutions

to expedite this vaccine to market

i have to leave you now because i have a

group meeting with the gender equity

scientists

who are developing the most promising

vaccines

i will keep you posted on our progress

thank you