Bringing Inclusivity into your Learning and Development Programmes
Do women-only development programmes have a place?
With International Women’s Day (8 March) around the corner, this is a totally valid question!
If we look at some of the stats (source: McKinsey) the business case is clear:
- Only one in four leaders at C-Suite level is a woman
- This number goes down to one in 20 for women of colour
- Women leaders are much more likely to leave their roles than men in similar roles
- Women leaders are twice as likely to be mistaken as someone more junior in their roles
We love the concept of #EmbracingEquity and when approached by a leading financial institution to support gender diversity at senior level we jumped at the opportunity to develop an experience that we could deliver to a women-only group.
Women in Business: Building Confidence and Capability
We jumped on the opportunity to combine some of our most popular performance modules to provide a three-day programme designed to:
- Increase confidence and conviction levels
- Help participants effectively and confidently demonstrate their capabilities
- Allow female talent to overcome ‘imposter bias’ and promote female talent within the company
- Provide new skills, allowing participants to influence people within, and outside of, the business
We ran our first programme in 2018 with a handful of participants and the performance results were amazing:
Benefits of our women-only experience
Improvement statistics are great, right? But what makes this different from a mixed-group experience?
Several participants commented on how whilst the training took them out of their comfort zones, they felt the environment provided a ‘safe space’ to learn new skills:
At time the role play was uncomfortable yet we all recognised it was necessary for growth.
This translated into long-term improvement for both participant and company with greater retention of female talent within the workplace – over four years the company has seen a 75% faster promotion rate for participants taking the course and a four times better chance of retaining staff than the company’s global average.
“We began this learning project with the goal of supporting gender diversity at senior levels of the business and the programme delivered on this brilliantly. Feedback from participants has been extremely positive and they come out feeling motivated, empowered and confident in their capabilities. The improvement stats speak for themselves, and we are retaining female talent at four times above the firmwide average.”
Broadening horizons
Since it’s launch in 2018, the programme has been delivered to over 300 leaders within the company, and has been made accessible to a wider audience.
“We have evolved the programme over the years to be inclusive, and the results have just been amazing throughout. Our teams are coming out with new, practical skills feeling confident on how to apply them in their daily lives.”
Whilst women-only programmes may not be the sole panacea to embracing equality in the workplace, we are super excited to hear the positive feedback from participants who leave our programme motivated, happy and empowered to embody their best ‘high-performing’ self:
“Incredible & unique learning experience – unlike any other training I’ve attended. Thoroughly enjoyed! Recommend extending out to our Junior talent – this programme is a MUST in developing our professional skill set across the firm.”
“life changing…..to literally watch colleagues grow and gain confidence in their own ability directly before your eyes, amazing! ’’
Why not try a taster to experience the impact of The Method for yourself – or try out our latest Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programme – by clicking the button below.
