4 immediate steps marketing leaders can take to ensure workplace gender equity

In the week surrounding International Women’s Day, stories of inequality abound, as do step-by-step advice columns for ensuring equality in the workplace, in society, and in our families. The truth is, there is no simple recipe for righting the imbalances of power that have led us to where we are today. But what we can do as leaders is face inequity with an open mind, ready to expose our blind spots, sit with uncomfortable realities, and see the world through another lens.

Facing these truths will ensure everyone in your workplace feels like they belong and are empowered to thrive. This is the responsibility that comes with power.

How can a leader truly lean into making all women, of all intersections, feel a sense of belonging and opportunity at work? Read on for some great ideas from those who have been paving the way.

1. Empower everyone to speak up

Amy Edmondson, Harvard Business School Professor, coined the term ‘psychological safety’ in the workplace in the 1990s. She identified that teams perform best when they feel safe to make mistakes, speak up, share ideas and take risks without fear of negative repercussions. Inherent in this is what she explains is ‘felt permission for candor.’ This is the replacement of a fear culture with a fearless culture.

Fostering psychological safety is essential if you are serious about building a workplace where under-represented voices feel empowered and comfortable to speak up. Part of this is ensuring that people of diverse identities are well-represented among the team. If you’re not already, it’s time to make a concerted effort to amplify the voices and stories of people from all backgrounds within your business. It’s about more than just giving everyone a platform; it’s about actively listening and valuing all perspectives and ensuring decision-making is led by a team reflecting the full diversity of your organization.

2. Hire beyond bias

‘There just weren’t any diverse candidates interested in this role.’ How many times have you heard this said when faced with a non-diverse pool of candidates? This is where we all have to go deeper. Inclusion within your business starts right from the beginning of the recruitment process.

Who is writing the job description? Where is it being advertised? Who is interviewing the candidates? Are you making adjustments available to the traditional interview format to level the playing field?

It’s time to rethink recruitment practices and implement measures to mitigate bias:

• Make it the company standard for job descriptions to use inclusive language and focus on skills and experience, never specific demographics.

• Consider removing the level of educational qualifications from your criteria, as this opens the door to a wider pool of candidates.

• Remove job adverts from sites with paywalls.

• Consider removing incentives to employees for candidate referrals, as this can promote hiring within one cultural circle and encourage nepotism.

• Do not ask about previous salary, as this will perpetuate gender and ethnicity pay gaps. Pay what the candidate is worth.

• Invest in the talent pipeline to nurture and attract more diverse candidates.

• Ensure diverse representation on your interview panels and train interviewers in overcoming bias.

• Implement structured interviews with standardized questions to promote fairness and consistency in the assessment process.

Most importantly, remember that hiring diverse talent is only effective if you have created a culture where everyone can thrive without fear once they join.

As Elizabeth Anyaegbuna, strategic growth advisor at our sister agency, Responsible Resourcing Agency (RRA), articulates powerfully: “Implementing inclusive hiring practices and opening communication channels are vital first steps for cultivating equality. But lasting change requires digging deeper. Leaders must actively identify and dismantle biases and barriers holding women and marginalized groups back from advancing. An equitable workplace demands continuously re-evaluating systems through an intersectional lens to unravel root causes of inequality.”

3. Counterbalance the ‘motherhood penalty’

The single most determining factor in the gender pay and leadership gap is motherhood, as mothers of two children make 26% less than women without children. Activist charity, Pregnant Then Screwed, which campaigns to end the motherhood penalty, has found that ‘Over half of all mothers – 52% – have faced some form of discrimination when pregnant, on maternity leave or when they returned. One in five mothers have left their job following a negative or discriminatory experience.’

The employment gap is even wider for women of color, with the employment rate of minoritized mothers in the UK being 6% lower than that of white mothers, found the Fawcett Society in their 2023 study on the ethnicity motherhood penalty.

Maternity leave and career coach for women Anna Wilk explains: “We’re awash with research, data and insights about gender equality, including horror stories about maternity leave discrimination and a lack of support for pregnant women and new mothers (and fathers!). There is a lot of noise about these challenges but not enough direct, open and honest conversations. Learning to work smarter during the life-changing transition into parenthood helps individuals, managers and the company.”

With this in mind, how can we, as employers, mitigate this risk and truly support women through motherhood?

• Communicate openly and upfront with all employees, candidates, and new joiners about your parental leave policies, setting the tone for open discussion around the topic with line managers and HR.

• Provide a clear plan for the transition into and out of maternity leave, including flexible working hours and, ideally, coaching before and after.

• Offer a mentoring programme within your company for returning parents to support each other.

• Lift women up in the organization once they return from maternity to close the maternity gap.

• And play your part in leveling the societal playing field by actively promoting the take up of parental leave policies so that fathers are increasingly sharing the responsibility of childcare.

It is key to extend parental support beyond the time of maternity leave, however, as childcare responsibilities still fall disproportionately on women throughout childhood, which can impact women’s career progression and salaries. Proactively keeping the dialogue open with women in the workplace to understand how to flex to their needs can ensure that the women in your team thrive.

4. Invest in immersive allyship education

Education is the primary route to tackling inclusion issues head-on. Providing hands-on, interactive training and education on allyship should be core to all business strategies.

Help employees understand the importance of actively supporting and advocating for their colleagues from marginalized groups by offering training and resources that promote empathy, understanding, and awareness, as unless you walk in another person’s shoes, you really cannot understand their reality.

A program that embodies this concept is Bloom UK’s Exchange program, a co-mentoring program launched in 2019 to close the gender divide by matching male leaders from our industry with leading women to each share with radical candor their lived experiences to engender true empathy between the genders. The program is based on the creation of a safe space between the co-mentors where the woman mentors the man in how he can close the gender divide within his organization, and then, in parallel, the man mentors the woman on how to overcome the barriers she faces in her career. The Exchange has been shown to have a profound impact, with a 493% increase in men’s clarity on what action can be taken to close the gender divide in their workplace and a 257% increase in women.

As one participant, a male MD, shared: “The biggest impact my co-mentoring partner had on me was the creation of a new filter for all my decisions and actions – I found myself asking, ‘What would she do? What would she say?’ I really learned to look at situations through her eyes.”

Through The Exchange or via immersive allyship training, the impact of education is clear; it takes time and investment, but as Elizabeth said earlier, we must “continuously re-evaluate systems through an intersectional lens to unravel root causes of inequality.”

The above makes for some powerful ways that you, as a leader, can take responsibility for creating a truly inclusive workplace that celebrates, supports and champions all women of all intersections. It’s also clear that this will not happen without great intention and effort. We can’t simply go through the motions of ticking the DEI&B boxes; this is about leaning into the people within your business with an open mind, constantly challenging yourself to find your blind spots, and listening to the voices surrounding you.

As we celebrate International Women’s Day this year, it’s the perfect time to reflect and put new momentum into your commitment to a future where everyone’s voice is heard.

Brooks heads up progressive media strategy at Diageo. She is the global strategy director at the Responsible Marketing agency.

Check out The Drum’s International Women’s Day coverage here.