Like it or not, your female workforce won’t be able to picture a future with you if you fail to motivate them. Take a moment to put yourself in their shoes and think of what they want from you:

“I’m not passionate about my job”

This is not about fake enthusiasm when the boss is within earshot, this is the fundamental premise that a woman’s heart must be in what she does in order to thrive. Our research, and numerous studies such as the On-Ramps, Off-Ramps Revisited by the Centre for Work Life Policy, shows that the primary reason women leave is because they don’t do a job just to pay the bills.  The dollar sign is not as important as having their heart in their role…

“My job is taking over my life”

Put more pressure on your female employees’ workload and know that she is forced to balance this by subtracting from her family and home commitments: more flexibility is high on the wish list of most female executives. So, push her too far and next time she takes an inventory of how she spends her time, she may feel she wants to stretch her wings elsewhere.

“I feel creatively stifled”

This employee enjoys her job and has looked for ways to improve her situation, but can’t turn the job into what she really wants. Nearly half of those surveyed in our recent research said that they wanted to be able to innovate and collaborate more. Don’t turn her into someone she’s not by keeping her nose to the grindstone.

“This is not the right place for me”

Women are more likely to align themselves with a company whose ethos mirrors her own. Embrace her world, offer her strategies for a sustainable working life and she will reciprocate with a strong commitment to your business.

“Other jobs look better”

If this is your first step into gender-savvy recruitment and retention, the good news is that you follow the lead of some clear leaders in the field. Don’t let your investment go to waste, act now to develop a strategy to retain and reinvigorate your female workforce.

Want to find out how to retain your top female talent? Buy Your Loss: How to Win Back your Female Talent- A gender savvy business plan for competitive advantage.

If you are a Diversity Manager, consider why the business is supporting Gender Diversity at all? Is it because the business wants to “keep women happy”? Do you hear, especially in times like these, that Diversity is not business-critical and so your budgets are non-existent? Or is gender diversity supported by a very solid business case on how it can impact the business’ bottom line because it enhances innovation?

Most companies, we find, have not reached that level. Diversity Management is not seen as business critical. I would, however, argue the contrary. Whether it is women or a minority group or other, affinity groups or networks can act as a catalyst for innovation. Want to know how to do that?

Embed the Network and build connections with business functions

Don’t leave the women’s network sidelined as a knitting circle. Cross-fertilise thinking with the rest of the organisation, such as sales, to look into business opportunities (e.g. new products), that women in a particular segment could find appealing or useful. Or, if you already have a product that you want to see how well it will fare with the fairer sex, why not ask the women in your organisation to give you input on how to best tweak it to suit their needs?

Invest in Out-of-the-Box Thinking

Affinity groups are also a great source of internal innovation. Adding on to the point above, bring together groups within the network to solve particular business problems. As a minority, (women, different races/cultures) thinking creatively to survive and prosper is critical. Let your organisation tap into the creative source of innovation. To do that, it is important to tap into individual identities and bring those to the table. We do this in what we call the CREATE process.

Embrace and Build On Difference

Whether it is because of different attire or different accents, affinity groups will be, by nature, different. These differences will infiltrate every grain of the business and may even, due to new perspectives, result in varying levels of conflict. Managing that conflict and allowing the different voices to be heard, appreciated and embraced is not easy. It is easier to have the “not-invented-here” response. All too often we hear “we have never done this before, so it will not work for us”. Fighting those instinctual responses is not easy.

Push the envelope: Live out of your Comfort Zone

In order to adapt to differences, do something different yourself. Read poetry or attend the ballet if you are the analytical type. Or if you are highly creative, sit down and do your personal accounts. Whilst you will not necessarily find these activities pleasing, they will open your mind (quite literally, as new neural connections will be built in your brain) to new experiences and acceptance to new influences. I wish I could say there is a magic formula for this to happen overnight… but there isn’t….

Diversity Managers are at the fore-front of change: they have to change the status quo. Making the case and building in small, but consistent activities to demonstrate the power of Diversity of Thought will enable to business move beyond Diversity Management to Industry Leadership.