Women at work

Facilitating, nurturing and celebrating female success

"A CEO wanted to hire me in their gaming company. Then I met the Group President. He spent a full hour complimenting my personality, work background, achievements, and how I had captured his attention. He said I was the best candidate he ever met and that I was perfect for the position. He said I was everything they were looking for in that role, but that as I was a young married woman and a first-time mum of a two-year-old, that he thought I would have too many priorities and would not be able to focus on my career, especially if I had another child. He told me to wait for a call from HR for an update. I walked out of the CEO's office, still with a smile on my face, and everyone in the office showing me congratulatory smiles as well.

Did I get the job? No.

A few weeks later, I signed with a different company, became the Head of Growth, met with global business leaders and travelled throughout Asia and the US. And I did all of that without losing any quality time with my family. This was a few years ago. Now I find myself in a company where gender, marital status and number of children are not challenges to work but are celebrated as reasons for purpose and productivity, and I could not be happier."

This is a true story shared by one woman Shiana Siruma, Vice President—Customer Solutions APAC, Strata Results, but one which must resonate with many women who have had similar experiences in the past…and in the not-so-distant now. Gender equality and empowerment of women in the workplace still has plenty of scope for improvement, but it is slowly gaining traction, and there's plenty of success to be celebrating in the wake of International Women's Day (IWD) in early March. Here, we share a few of those inspirational success stories and advice from some of the world's top women executives who are making an impact, making workplaces better, and championing what can be done to keep things moving in the right direction.

Mind the Gap

There is a significant gender gap, particularly within the technology field, and while change is unlikely to come overnight, there are several actions that organisations can take to help address this. Lynn Bishop, Managing Director and Chief Information Officer, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), said, "Firms should offer more programmes and initiatives to nurture female staff. First, it is critical that we continue to encourage young women and girls to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects to ensure a diverse pipeline of tomorrow's talent. Second, these efforts should be supplemented by programs and initiatives within firms that help women to reach their full potential."

DE&I goals—set, track & share
To set and achieve DE&I goals, KPIs need to be tracked across lateral hires and promotions, retention and the organisation's engagement with its talent to motivate and enable inclusion. One organisation making great strides in this regard, particularly with ensuring sufficient female representation, is DAL Piper. The firm recently announced DE&I goals. Building on its existing baseline of a 21% female partnership, it has set a goal to increase that percentage to 30% within four years and 40% by 2030. Moreover, at least half of all internal partner promotions will come from under-represented groups, including cultural heritage and ethnicity, gender and identity, disability and neurodiversity, background and social mobility, sexual orientation and people working part-time. The firm will also continue to monitor data on all its fee-earning employees and its Business Services people to ensure it remains inclusive and representative and commits to addressing any emerging imbalances through a broadened recruitment strategy.

DLA Piper's Global Co-CEO, Simon Levine, commented, "The legal industry has long grappled with diversity and inclusion, and good intentions alone will not get us to where we need to be. As well as simply being the right thing to do, ensuring a level playing field for everyone in our business and being representative of the communities we serve is critical in enabling the diversity of thought needed to help our clients solve complex problems and seize opportunities. Publicly stating our commitment means we are accountable."

Macro ideas, micro support
This is a challenge facing many companies looking for graduates of STEM subjects. The lack of female participation in these subjects means recruiting a diverse workforce is a significant challenge for some industries. Sophie Guerin, Head of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, APAC at Johnson & Johnson and former APJ Diversity & Inclusion Lead, Global Diversity & Inclusion at Dell in an earlier interview with HR Magazine, was keen to pass on what Dell had been doing to help counteract this issue.

Guerin explained, "Research has shown that around the ages of 13 and 14, girls start to drop out and lose interest in STEM-related learning. This means Dell has begun to focus on the grassroots, engaging with girls at a younger age to capture their interest." Schemes such as the Girls Outreach Programme and the humorously named IT Is Not Just for Geeks focus on making STEM more attractive to young teenagers.

Employees at Dell worked with students on the Girl Student Outreach Programme over the course of 25 weeks, educating them on the skills required to work in the IT industry, encouraging them to work on networking skills and inculcating confidence in them. The participants were taken through basic programming languages and worked on computing, networking and storage.

Both programmes work towards tackling the low uptake of STEM subjects by girls through providing interaction with Dell representatives. Guerin defined the aims of the programmes, "The goal is to reveal some of the previously unseen avenues of future employment and to make tech more accessible to girls." Dell—being a computer tech company—is uniquely positioned to offer these things. Combining engaged leadership and accountability, active mentoring of talent and monitoring of development, Dell hopes to see a greater intake of female STEM workers in the coming years.

As Dell's efforts make clear, other than the macro-ideas to do with strategy, an iterative series of micro-collaborations and long-term thinking, it is also important to have initiatives that aim to proactively remedy the issues faced today. When it concerns diversity and inclusion, there are several initiatives that HR can take to help make a difference, including career development opportunities, cultivating an environment where women have broad support across the organisation and enabling them to build a network of sounding boards and sponsors.

Attracting the right talent
Organisations can launch several initiatives to help achieve better parity in terms of both gender and diversity in general. To help DLA Piper achieve such goals, the firm has rolled out a number of initiatives throughout all levels of its business. At the trainee level, the firm has a series of rigorous measures to attract and recruit young lawyers from a broad range of backgrounds. Over and above DLA Piper's lateral hiring strategy, the firm has also introduced a new sponsorship programme, Elevate, where leaders recognise under-represented proteges' unique experiences and talents—championing them and helping them to broker networks as they make their way through the business. The firm also runs a reverse mentoring programme designed to relay individuals' knowledge and experience from ethnic minority backgrounds with senior managers. This programme increases understanding to help leaders proactively recruit, develop and promote talent from under-represented backgrounds. The firm also has multiple people networks that act as allies for families and carers, LGBT+ people, people from ethnic minorities and women.

Prioritising over perfection
The shift to remote working and homeschooling has exacerbated the challenge of juggling jobs and parenting, and in many cases, women continue to bear the brunt of the pandemic's impact. However, the pandemic has also prompted businesses to take a more flexible approach to work—a positive result during such a challenging time. This has also created opportunities for business to take a creative approach to foster collaboration and inclusivity through virtual training, webinars and other activities that foster engagement, build relationships and create a more supportive environment—all of which will pay dividends now and in the future.

Keisha Bell, Managing Director and Head of Diverse Talent Management and Advancement, DTCC

Reflecting this shift to more flexible working arrangements as an opportunity for corporates to foster greater engagement and inclusion among colleagues, Keisha Bell, Managing Director and Head of Diverse Talent Management and Advancement, DTCC, noted, "The best piece of advice I have for women is to focus not on being perfect, but instead, giving your best performance every day. It can often be easy to get caught up in trying to be the perfect friend, boss, colleague, partner and parent, but these are unrealistic goals that can take a significant amount of time and energy." She added, "Over the course of my career, I've learned to focus on the bigger picture, to be kinder to myself and to strive to make a positive impact in everything I do. This mindset has enabled me to prioritise better, build greater confidence and grow in my career and achieve success."

#MeToo pivot
The #MeToo movement has helped empower women, particularly those who are young and vulnerable, through empathy and strength in numbers, by visibly demonstrating the sheer number of women who have survived sexual assault and harassment—especially in the workplace.

Garth Simmons, CEO, Accor SE Asia, Japan and South Korea, noted the significance of the movement, "We are at a pivotal moment in history, with the #MeToo movement showing the prevalence of harassment and violence against women, and the best way to combat this is to ensure we have equal representation of women in positions of leadership across the workplace and the community." He added, "I am proud to say that my executive committee consists of five women and six men, and I have always believed that gender equity leads to a richness of ideas and greater collaboration and performance.

As the father of two daughters, Simons wanted to ensure that they grew up in a world where everyone is treated with dignity and respect and offered equal access to opportunities. He noted, "Working across 12 countries in Asia, I have seen first-hand how poverty and inaccessibility can foster gender-based inequality, and I am deeply committed to creating an environment where we can bring about real change. In particular, we must promote and mentor women and engage in community projects that provide support and education to disadvantaged women and girls."

As one of the ten founding signatories of the United Nations HeForShe movement, Accor, as a global group, is committed to gender equality, diversity, and inclusion and this year, on IWD signed the Coalition Ending Gender-Based Violence. Accor will also host a conference highlighting the impacts of gender-based violence. The event—featuring Kalliopi Mingeirou, UN Women Chief, Ending Violence against Women and Girls; Geraldine Grace da Fonseca da Justa, Director of Brazil's Department for Policies to Combat Violence Against Women; and Sohini Bhattacharya, President & CEO Breakthrough India—aims to help educate employees worldwide on the issues facing women and barriers against equality.

Support and mentoring networks
Mentoring is widely recognised as one of the key factors contributing to talent skills development, mental well-being and career advancement. HR and mentors play a crucial role in providing sage direction and support in team members' professional career development. Dr Laura Haynes, Professor, UConn Health and a member of the Trudeau Institute, New York, highlighted this in her paper in Nature Immunology, Mentoring and networking: how to make it work. She noted evidence to support the fact that mentoring can improve career satisfaction, thereby increasing recruitment and employee retention time.

Putting a women's support and mentoring network in place is an excellent way for HR to achieve better gender parity and maximise retention of great female talent by providing psychological support and facilitating career advancement. In this respect, since 2012, Accor launched its RiiSE support network, promoting diversity to drive collective performance. The network engages both women and men in the group to work together, using mentoring, training, education and conferences to fight stereotypes and violence against women and promote diversity and inclusion.

Women on Boards
Simmons acknowledges that while the Accor leadership committee is gender balanced, more needs to be done to ensure equal representation of women across the group, especially in Operations. The heads of the Corporate Finance, Legal, Talent & Culture (HR), Commercial and Communications teams are women, but in the operational side of the business, there is still a predominance of men. While women make up 40.5% of staff at the hotel level, they represent only 14% of hotel General Managers. In terms of corporate offices, 57.5% of staff are women, and 56.4% of middle managers are women, so there is a strong pipeline of women coming up through the organisation at a corporate level, but further action must be taken to encourage more women to take up the role of General Manager at a hotel level.

Simmons said, "I have asked our teams across SE Asia, Japan & South Korea to double down on their efforts to ensure women are offered equal opportunities across all levels of the business, and we will particularly focus on fostering more female General Managers across the hub." He added, "In a post-Covid world, increased flexibility for both women and men will help break down existing bias against women who traditionally have taken more time off to look after their families."

Celebrate successes and sacrifices
It is important also to take a step back and celebrate successes and sacrifices in a year when women, and men, have found themselves at the frontline of the pandemic. Sadly, 2,833 women (including 110 nurses) died of COVID in the UK between March and December 2020. The number was similar in the US for the same period. A year on 5 March 2021, Amnesty International puts the number of healthcare workers who have died worldwide from COVID-19 at over 17,000. Women worldwide have shown bravery, kindness and literally laid down their lives in fighting the pandemic to keep healthcare systems and essential services running.

The theme for IWD 2021 was "Choose to Challenge", recognising the need to call out gender bias and inequality. Women often remain the unsung heroes in society, no matter what challenges they face. This past year women such as Ardern, Michelle Obama and Professor Devi Sridhar have shown real leadership when it has been most needed, but countless other women, not in the public eye, have achieved everyday successes by simply getting on with whatever they face.

The British Safety Council is another organisation that has worked hard to achieve a more gender-balanced and inclusive workforce, with 53% of staff being female. Mike Robinson, Chief Executive, the British Safety Council, commented, "Let's celebrate and give praise for often-unsung women heroes. Recognition can take many forms, be it a simple thank you for all the homeschooling women have provided during the pandemic, a thoughtful text message or credit for their unswerving support or national or global leadership in managing through adversity."

With such celebrations, HR can help shine a beacon to highlight successes and inspire women to achieve their full potential. Organisations are always strongest when they support all members of the team.

In honour of International Women's Day 2021, we profile a selection of diverse women from across the Accor SE Asia network to celebrate their achievements and tips they share to encourage more women to strive towards their goals and more men to support them.

Kerry Healy, Chief Commercial Officer, SE Asia, Japan & South Korea, Accor

"I know that the best way to grow is to stretch yourself beyond what you think you are capable of. Risk brings the best rewards, and it's great to work for a company that supports innovation and encourages new ways of thinking, especially amid a crisis. I want to create a culture where people don't feel uncomfortable prioritising their families. One of the greatest things to come from this pandemic is increased workplace flexibility, enabling us all to live richer lives. My advice to other women is to not let fear stop you, but instead to embrace fear as a way to grow."

Anne-Cecile Degenne, Executive Chef, Sofitel Ambassador Seoul Hotel & Serviced Residences, South Korea

"The best career advice I ever received was from my first Executive Chef, who once told me, no matter the difficulties, follow your dream. For all the women out there who sometimes doubt themselves, I will say that nothing is impossible. It's all about work and passion, no matter how long it takes, go where you want to go and achieve your dreams."

Hanh Pham, Director, Finance Operations Upper Southeast Asia and the Maldives, Accor Vietnam

"Be a team player. Every individual has his/her own set of skills and strengths. When a whole team works together, there are valuable opportunities to learn from each other and experience a sense of responsibility and accountability."

Novita Damayanti, Bartender, Novotel Suites Yogyakarta Malioboro, Indonesia

"One of my managers said that life is not simply about the balance between taking and giving. There will be times when we need to give without expecting something in return. We just need to do and be the best we can be without expecting any immediate rewards. One day, it will come back to us tenfold and in unexpected ways."

Warairat Sompong—General Manager Ibis Styles Bangkok Ratchada, Thailand

"I have learned that in any situation, in our personal life or working life, look for the silver lining. We can definitely find a great lesson in seemingly negative situations. This advice has helped me a lot in these challenging times to be better prepared and see how we can emerge from this stronger than ever. I am a big believer in people being our most valuable asset. In any organisation or hotel, our talents are the foundation for our success. My priority is always to ensure our people are engaged and keep them positive while ensuring we all work together collaboratively and supportively. The more I learn about people, the more I enjoy our differences."