These are my favorite words after ‘disruptive’. After all, these are top trending words, especially after Satya Nadella’s ancient goof up. Women empowerment is not a new focus area. Nor is diversity and inclusion. It’s been talked about to death and yet the statistics don’t reflect what we’d like them to.
With women making up almost half the global population, the numbers in the workforce are shocking. According to a very interesting report by the International Monetary Fund, increasing women’s employment rates around the globe could result in huge gains. Even more surprising reports talk about how women are 40 percent of the world’s labor force but only have 1 percent of its wealth. While we’ve come a long way from the 1960’s, we have distance to cover. (Here’s some interesting data: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS)
On the other hand, inclusion of disabled and LGBT’s have yet to take on a bigger space on stage like women empowerment has. While a lot of companies have gone ahead to declare their diversity and inclusion programs on their company pages, a lot more need to follow suit. I do love how AT&T, Allianz and GAP to an extent have clearly mentioned different programs that exist to address this issue.
What programs does your organization run for inclusion and diversity?
P.S. I feel terrible about being AWOL for so long. There has been a lot going on and I will loop you in soon.
The HR Business Partner Story 