In 2019, we commissioned a research project with the University of Technology (UTS) in Sydney to compile a set of recruitment and retention policies that have been implemented across geographies, industries, and organisations and can be tied to tangible improvements in diversity outcomes. This report, entitled Improving Gender Diversity, was completed a few months ago. It lays out a list of 13 tools that have been successfully used to recruit and retain women in organisations. A couple of these initiatives include:
- An Icelandic company that used apprenticeship programmes and wage gap audits after the financial crisis to increase the number of women in management positions from 30 to 50% over the course of 5 years, and all but close the pay gap between genders.
- A Japanese company that was able to meet a goal of 30% of new managers being women (from 6.5% just three years prior) through an accelerator programme started in 2005. This programme already existed to fast track top talent, but through development initiatives focused on women early on, they were able to exponentially increase the number of women included in the accelerator programme.
