Gender inclusion is good for businesses. Time and again, companies that hire women into their workforces and prioritize them as customers reap the commercial benefits.

Acumen has witnessed it firsthand. A number of its investees have embarked on ambitious gender initiatives courtesy of a critical partnership with Value for Women. These initiatives led to financial and social returns and inspired Acumen, Value for Women, and 60 Decibels to write a report that shares their collective learnings and experiences.

The report is, in our biased opinion, well worth reading in its entirety! It lays out six clear pathways that businesses can take to improve how they recruit women staff, serve women customers, and create a workplace where everyone can thrive. There’s a lot of great content for business leaders committed to gender action and who want to understand how it can be successfully applied, particularly in emerging market contexts and challenging environments. 

If you don’t have time to jump into the full report, here’s a handy how-to guide for selecting the best actions and for quick-and-easy strategizing about building a more gender-inclusive company. 

Option 1: Do you want to get better at reaching women customers and sourcing from women suppliers?

Women customers and suppliers are a huge and often underserved market, particularly for last-mile sales in more rural areas. Reaching them takes more than selling the same product to different customers; it requires redesigning your customer or supplier experience for a distinct context:

1. First, assess the needs of target women and women-led businesses in a holistic way. This can also help companies address women-specific pain points like limited access to transport.
2. Second, invest in market research that focuses on women customers, then tailor marketing to women based on the values that resonate, distribution channels they frequent, and referrals they trust.
3. Closely related to marketing, companies can ensure that their sales force is gender-diverse (some research has shown that women agents can be more effective than their male counterparts) and that women agents have the tools to reach last-mile communities, such as access to demo inventory and transportation.
4. Going a step further, companies can integrate an inclusive design approach into their business models. For example, the design firm Unconform put forward principles such as the women-centric eye that ensure projects meet women’s holistic needs without creating unintended consequences. 
5. Lastly, companies can improve outcomes for women suppliers by facilitating access to related inputs and training. 

Potential business outcomes include increased sales to existing customers, bringing new customers or suppliers on board, diversifying your supply chain, and creating more stickiness for your customers and suppliers. On the social side, better outreach to women suppliers can increase incomes and market access. For customers, better product and service design can lead to many positive outcomes: higher incomes, time savings, and a better quality of life. 

Case in point:

Kentaste is a Kenyan company that buys coconuts from smallholder farmers and uses them to create value-added products like coconut oil. Kentaste wanted to increase the amount of coconut it was sourcing, and market research carried out with Value for Women revealed that women suppliers were underrepresented in their farmer network. 

In response, Kentaste implemented targeted recruitment, registration, and training of women suppliers. They sent a team to local sourcing regions, identified and contacted women farmers, helped them register as suppliers, and offered targeted training. 

Over one month, these actions increased the number of women farmers in Kentaste’s network by 2.7x. In the subsequent three years, the share of Kentaste’s revenue sourced from women increased from 13% to 21%. Kentaste has faced headwinds in the last few years, and the leadership shared that the increased sourcing from women farmers has helped the business weather the challenges, as they found that women farmers were more reliable suppliers.

For more insights on better reaching women customers and suppliers, check out Pathways 1 and 2 in the report (pages 24-44). 

 

Option 2: Do you want to recruit more women staff and agents?

Recruiting more women staff and agents requires a holistic approach to the recruitment process. 

1. Start by designing jobs with a focus on women. For example, analyze barriers that deter women applicants, then find ways around them, such as providing transport, flexible scheduling, childcare, or low-cost loans. 
2. It also helps to set targets for gender diversity within the company, and then encourage and incentivize employees to refer women candidates. 
3. To reach more women candidates, advertise in channels that reach talented women jobseekers and ensure job descriptions differentiate between required and preferred skill sets. 
4. To avoid unintentionally excluding qualified women candidates, companies need to train recruiters on unconscious biases and ways of mitigating them, then use standard criteria for assessing candidates based on their relevant skills. 
5. Lastly, provide training and development opportunities for women, and ensure performance evaluations recognize women's skills.

Women employees and agents of companies that took these actions saw more job opportunities, higher pay, and overall greater satisfaction. 

Case in point: 

uPlanner, a Chilean edtech company, was preparing for a recruitment drive and had previously not been able to bring in women hires at the same rate as men. 

With support from Value for Women and investor ALIVE Ventures, uPlanner took several actions in concert. They set targets: a goal of more than 35% of women in the workforce overall and 25+% in the operations team. They trained hiring managers on the importance of diversity and how to counteract workplace biases. They adjusted recruiting materials and branding to focus on inclusion, then used targeted channels for recruiting women in tech. 

What happened? Two years later, women have increased from 25% to 42% of uPlanner’s workforce and from 17% to 36% on the operations team. At the beginning of the process, the C-Suite had no women; now three out of seven top executives are women. 

For more insights on recruiting women, check out Pathway 3 in the report (pages 45-54). 

 

Option 3: Do you want to build a safe, inclusive workplace where everyone can be productive? 

It does little good to recruit more women to join an unfriendly, inflexible workplace. Companies have taken the following steps to begin to build a better culture and space:

1. Vocally and repeatedly prioritize inclusion at the leadership and management levels, and make sure this is communicated throughout all levels of the organization.
2. Gather data and feedback on employees’ experiences in the workplace, including sexual harassment. Use surveys or small group meetings and disaggregate the data by sex. 
3. Establish basic inclusive practices and policies, such as an anti-sexual harassment policy and inclusive recruitment practices. Create awareness of policies from onboarding and training.
4. Provide mandatory training on harassment prevention and response.
5. Set up a grievance mechanism with confidential reporting channels and transparent investigation processes. 
6. Adopt a survivor-centric approach to respond to the needs of survivors/victims and/or people affected and provide them with the information, resources, and support they require. 

Businesses that foster inclusive workplaces tend to see improved employee satisfaction and productivity. They experience an improved reputation and recruit more diverse talent. And their workers tend to stay longer and miss fewer days. On the other side of the equation, women who have an inclusive, equitable place to work have more opportunities, more stable employment, and less burnout. Women and men who work in a more inclusive, equitable environment often show improved job satisfaction and performance. 

Case in point: 

Symplifica, a Colombian HR tech company, and ALIVE Ventures investee, undertook a gender diagnostic to assess its performance on inclusion. It found that fewer women reported a good work-life balance than men. 

The company designed and launched a Gender Commitment and Inclusion Strategy, which set out Symplifica’s vision for gender inclusion and how the company would act on it. The commitment was just the start. Symplifica then launched a family support policy, which formalized flexible working arrangements and provided support for nursing mothers. It took additional actions, such as adopting a gender recruitment policy and developing an awareness campaign on gender-based violence with the local government. 

This commitment made a difference for Symplifica’s staff. The percentage of women who felt they had a work-life balance increased from 56% to 90%. At the baseline survey, two-thirds of women staff thought the company took the needs of mothers seriously. After the policy shifts, that figure rose to 93%. 

For more insights on building an inclusive workplace, check out Pathways 4, 5, and 6 in the report (pages 56-85). 

 

Start by listening

There is a clear and common success factor among these actions and case studies: taking the time to listen. We encourage you to take every opportunity to ask women about their experiences: agents, customers, suppliers, staff, potential staff, potential customers. Understanding barriers and finding creative solutions can unlock new markets, build stronger teams, and make your company a better place to work. 

Got more questions? Check out the full report: Pathways to Growth: Gender-smart business actions that work. 

 

This blog post was co-authored by Asya Troychansky and Erica Berthelsen of Value for Women and Dan Waldron of Acumen.