Helping Women Accelerate in Business

The pandemic was disruptive for everyone, but the impacts on women in the workforce were significant. Additionally, the labor shortage crisis across sectors has created challenges, but it also opens the door to great opportunities. The time to encourage women to pursue high-demand sectors and focus on creating female leaders is now. We’re already focusing more on achieving pay equity, but there is a lot of room for growth.

Reskilling & Upskilling Women in Business

One of the best ways to support your employees is to upskill them. Encourage their career shifts. Women are opting out of certain professions because they don’t have the required skills or they can’t afford to go back to school to gain those skills. Employers need to offer pathways that can stop women from being static.

“[Women need a] path that allows for flexibility, gives new ways of learning and being able to apply what you’ve been doing but now applying it to a new career. They have to start working with organizations that are keeping that talent pool upskilling into the next job but also lateral moves into different departments altogether,” says Rushmi Hasham, Director for Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst. Partnerships play a big role here. Organizations can work together to help women uncover their transferable skills, build confidence, and gain a sense of direction.

Senior Vice President and Chief HR Officer for Nutrien, Candice Lang says that they have cohorts of women working together in accelerated development programs. They expose them to the business and how it runs but also action learning projects. Together, they take on a project outside of their current area and, as a team, deliver valuable work. This way they contribute to a different part of the business and, at the same time, strengthen a new talent in a positive learning environment.

It's important for businesses to take skills assessments to identify what skills are needed and what your team already has to offer. They get to look across their population for upcoming openings. If leaders and managers can be convinced, it isn’t difficult to train employees with the required technical expertise. There’s a possibility to turbocharge the learning process, particularly with cohort projects and mentorships.

Mentorships vs. Sponsorships

Mentorships are pivotal in how someone chooses their next step or role. It has nothing to do with what you do right now. These people can talk you through different parts of your company that you don’t have exposure to. A mentor doesn’t need to be senior to us, just anyone who can help you learn.

The next step is sponsorship. There is a difference between having a mentor and having a sponsor. Zabeen Hirji, Executive Advisor for Deloitte, says that in research, we see women having more mentors and men having more sponsors. This is helping them land jobs. So, what’s the difference?

A sponsor is a person who can advocate for you in the room that you’d like to be in. These could be trusted advisors, friends, or even someone you meet at an event. Look for individuals that aren’t key decision-makers, but rather who can help your name be mentioned where you may not be otherwise considered.

Sponsorship can build confidence in women to apply for jobs that they otherwise wouldn’t consider. “Men traditionally apply for jobs way more that they may not be as qualified for than women because we want to be ‘totally’ qualified,” says Lenna Turner, Director of DEI at Salary.com. This isn’t the case across the board, but it does play a role in the stagnation of some women’s careers. Candice Lang adds, “Unfortunately there are differences in patterns about how we think about career decisions so the role of sponsorship is so critical. Every major move I made came from a critical nudge from some formal or informal sponsorship saying you should go for this.” Women should show up with their key strengths of totality and vulnerability.

The Future of Supporting Women in Business

We’ve named some things that businesses and individuals can do to improve women’s representation in business, but it goes beyond this. “There isn’t sufficient focus and urgency around skill-building needs in a collective sense,” says Zabeen Hirji. There needs to be a collective effort from governments, businesses, labor unions, NFPs, and educators to reskill and upskill at scale.

Unfortunately, many women feel like they can’t make career shifts because of what’s needed to be qualified for roles outside of their expertise. The time, and money for that matter, needed for further studies isn’t something that many women are privileged to have. This stagnation jeopardizes their chance to develop their careers in new fields.

Ideally, governments and corporations need to work together to decrease the cost of accessing skills programming and the length of time it takes to complete these programs. Companies can help their employees by being flexible with working hours so they can fit them into their schedules. A big fear for many is how to earn as you learn. We don’t want to wait for people to be unemployed to upskill them.

Additionally, Lenna Turner says, “The way to support a woman, or anyone really, is through pay equity. It creates a sustainable way of life and at the end of the day it’s the right thing to do. Being transparent is a catalyst for pay equity.” This is how we can fundamentally support women as we progress in the workplace.

Watch the Panel

If you want to hear more from Candice Lang, Rushmi Hasham, Zabeen Hirji, and Lenna Turner, watch the Canadian Women in Business Accelerate Webinar. As successful women in business, they further explore the issues and opportunities in the workforce for women today. They also offer their personal advice to women making career changes based on their own experiences.