In Pursuit of Equity: Lessons From Leaders

Gender equity should be woven into the way every company operates today. This year, organisations and individuals are coming together for International Women’s Dayunder the theme “Embrace Equity”. But the unfortunate reality is that we still have significant steps left to take to achieve equity in our workplaces.

Women, however, are not waiting around for employers to deliver on their equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) promises. Female workers are (rightly) demanding greater equity and representation from their employers and - when those requests go unmet - they have no qualms about leaving. In fact, female employees - particularly female leaders - are leaving in greater numbers than before in pursuit of equity. In practical terms, two female directors voluntarily leave their company for every one who gets promoted.

This “Great Breakup” shows that organisations cannot afford to drag their heels on EDI. Our recent Global Workforce of the Future Report shows that 60% of workers are passively looking for other job opportunities.

What's worse, 'quitfluencers' can spark quitting sprees - 50% of workers who have seen someone quit have quit themselves in the following 12 months. Companies simply cannot afford to have its female workers leave. Embracing equity therefore isn’t just the right thing to do - it's an essential survival strategy in the race for talent.

We asked four leaders across LHH, Akkodis, Adecco and The Adecco Group as a whole to talk about equity in the workplace, the importance of listening to what employees want, and the need for decisive action on policies that place equity at their core.

Equity vs equality

We often use these two words interchangeably but there is a subtle and important difference between them in the context of EDI. Helen Tomlinson, Head of Talent Development at The Adecco Group UK&I, defines this difference for us: “equity is the key ingredient of EDI - you can’t be diverse or inclusive without it. Say your employees need to get to work. Equality is like giving everyone the same factory-fresh bicycle; but equity is giving everyone a bicycle that’s built and adjusted so that they can ride it as fast as they’re able to.”

For example, the UN recently stated that women account for just 35% of graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields and only one in five professionals in cutting edge fields like artificial intelligence are women.

“This must change!” said Jan Gupta, President of Akkodis. “By leveraging digitalisation, the world’s industries are becoming smarter and more sustainable. Smart Industry – as we call it at Akkodis - is where engineering, digital and IT converge in a connected world. We believe Smart Industry is a change agent to bring about the shift to a more equitable future."

Huge opportunities exist in closing talent gaps like these, but attracting and empowering women in fields like Smart Industry will require equity across the whole company.

For Aly Sparks, Group SVP and Global Head of HR at LHH, this necessitates the building of community: “Building an inclusive environment is about putting egos aside and working together for the good of everyone. When we talk about ‘inclusivity’ we think individualistically, but it should be about ‘us’, not just ‘me’.”

She adds: "To work best as a unit each individual needs to feel like they are contributing, that they are being heard. In an inclusive, equitable environment, everyone is able to take risks without fear, learn from mistakes and become better."

Before you treat everyone equitably, however, you need to know what they need and what they want.

“We send out regular surveys to all our employees - these anonymised surveys help us to measure how happy our employees are at work with questions focused on their career growth, accomplishment, social and mental wellbeing, management support, and non-discrimination at work,” says Karen Teo Bi Hong, Director of Staffing at Adecco Singapore. “The management team will then review the responses to act on those findings.”

Helen expands upon the importance of data in defining what equity looks like within an organisation. “We are totally data driven. We look at intersectionality to see how addressing one group impacts another. This data-driven approach pushes us to constantly re-evaluate how we do things," she said.  

Allies and champions are crucial figures in an organisation’s pursuit of equity.

“These key people play an important role in driving an inclusive culture within an organisation” by acting as a focal point for knowledge, questions and actions, says Karen. Companies can rely on their champions to help promote equity by embodying it in their daily lives at work, answer questions about EDI practices (like the difference between equity and equality, for example), and spearhead initiatives designed to promote inclusivity.

“We run allyship courses for a lot of different areas that teach people how to be a good ally,” says Helen. “We also have a Hot Topics network and regular sessions called TAG Talks run by a group of about 40 people, a little bit like mental health first aiders, who have allyship training and actual lived experiences.”

Culture beyond policy

Most workplaces have policies affirming their commitment to equity and outlining their plans to achieve it. But while DEI policies provide a crucial framework for embracing equity, companies need to go beyond the letter of their policies to make an impact by effectively implementing them.

For Helen, the journey from plan to meaningful action began with The Adecco Group’s menopause policy.

“Our menopause work kicked off our move to equity. We implemented a menopause policy in 2021 on World Menopause Day, and what that did was open up the conversation,” she said.

Informal brunches and coffee breaks with a focus on inclusion rose out of this, covering topics far beyond the remit of the original policy. Other sessions include a male mental health discussion called Shoulder to Shoulder and a network called Holding Hands that supports employees who have lost a child.

“We even ran a coffee morning called ‘Bloody Hell! We’re talking about periods,’” says Helen. “We have five generations in the workforce so that was aimed at broadening the conversation in a humorous way to include everyone.”

All this action, notes Helen, would not have happened without the original implementation of the menopause policy that placed equity at its core.

“The actual policy is now almost irrelevant because this conversation has changed the culture of the company,” she told us. In fact, the reception of this policy was so great that Helen was recently appointed as the UK government's first ever Menopause Employment Champion - a great example of personal passion becoming internal initiative becoming government action.

Aly adds that bringing the right people together to build relationships in a trusting environment is the foundation of equitable working.

“Creating relationships and trust happens over time with shared experiences," she says. "There must be an element of empowerment in which people can grow through these experiences.”

Karen echoes the importance of this cultural change in pursuing equity. 

“Inclusivity isn’t just a policy on paper but a mindset shift that people need to adopt. There needs to be a shift towards a gender-neutral mindset that challenges the traditional gender binaries that limit opportunities for people based on their gender,” she says.

In some cases, this might take some educating. Karen remembers speaking to a recruiter who relied on a stereotype of women as needing closer management and being less competent.

"It took me a while to educate him and address some of his concerns, but after a few conversations he was more open to interview candidates of both genders," she recounts. "He actually ended up recruiting a female talent who stayed with him for years!"

Making the future work for everyone

It is crucial that employers understand their central role in the megatrends that continue to shape the world of work. Our Global Workforce of the Future Report reveals that 70% of workers believe their employer is responsible for a better working future. This does not mean that organisations should be expected to impact external strains, but they should invest in softening the concerns of their workforce by fostering an environment where transparency and empathy can thrive.

Equity is about understanding and respecting people as unique individuals. Organisations need to ensure that they are enshrining that sentiment in their DEIpolicies and frameworks - but they also need to be aware that no policy will ever be able to do justice to the diversity and uniqueness of every employee.

At the recruitment stage, companies should hire and foster talent, not labels, to promote the shift from policy to cultural change. Organisations need to meet their employees where they are with regular surveys and campaigns that put employees at the centre of DEI decision-making. The question should always be: what do our people want and how can we give it to them in a way that benefits everyone?

We aim to make the future work for everyone so embracing equity forms a core pillar of The Adecco Group’s EDI framework. We want to achieve gender parity in our leadership roles by 2030 and we are a member of Paradigm for Parity, a coalition of business leaders whose mission is to give equal power and opportunity to everyone in the corporate world. Most importantly, we want to foster a culture of belonging, trust, and participation by recognising and valuing diversity of thought to help our business, communities and clients succeed in the world of work.