We partner with forward-thinking organisations who recognise the benefits of accelerating gender equality

Shape Talent worked with a European client with global expansion plans; they were just at the starting blocks when it came to EDI and were feeling pressure from investors, customers, end consumers and employees around the need for greater focus, particularly around gender. This was also contributing to their difficulty attracting talent. Our approach involved a workshop with a cross-functional group to understand the pressure points on the business, a landscape review of competitors, customers and suppliers to bring some outside-in thinking, and a facilitated discussion with their executive leadership team, resulting in an honest assessment of the situation and a commitment to develop a focused plan. Next, we ran focus groups to bring to life the employee experience, and collectively this enabled us to build concrete recommendations for next steps. We are now working with this client to implement these recommendations.

For one European-headquartered client in the STEM industry, we helped address the problem of women being acutely underrepresented in particular functions within their business. To understand the barriers, we used a combination of quantitative and qualitative diagnostics to assess the current context, including a mix of focus groups and interviews to bring to life the lived experience of individuals through storytelling. We were able to gather powerful stories and these were shared with the sponsors of this work.

Through this process we were able to identify the top three issues for focus, which helped inform their equity, diversity and inclusion strategy. Challenges identified were:

1. Recruitment barriers - conservative hiring practices meant managers sought candidates who met an unnecessarily long list of requirements. Being a STEM industry this disproportionately excluded women.
2. ‘Always on’ culture - excessive work demands meant that women disproportionately found the competing demands of work and home life difficult to juggle, and were opting out of progression opportunities as a result.
3. Global mobility - the perceived requirement for global mobility also meant women were self-selecting out of leadership opportunities, due to the challenges associated with juggling a dual career household.

This client is currently implementing changes as a result of these findings, including awareness-raising programmes to educate line leaders around inclusive practices as well as a series of structural adjustments to their recruitment practices.

We worked with a volunteer-led Employee Resource Group, contributing to their conference with a keynote presentation on the Three Barriers to Women’s Career Progression. The event was very well received and generated significant engagement and discussion across the organisation, both during and after the event.

For another firm, we led a session with the top 100 leaders as part of their Inclusive Leadership programme. The aim was to share insights and help to stimulate ideas and discussions which could then be fed back into their action learning sets to result in positive, practical actions. The session created a real buzz amongst the organisation, provoking discussion and debate.