In today’s climate of rising costs, sales pressures, tech disruption, and political uncertainty, inclusion can get side-lined because it’s being positioned as another priority competing for the attention of leaders. Our Head of Research, Edward Haigh, suggests the real opportunity is to reframe inclusion, not as an extra item on the agenda, but as the answer to leaders’ biggest challenges: driving sales, reducing costs, and staying competitive.

Our Head of Research, Edward Haigh, explores the role of leaders in creating an inclusive culture and how the real crucible of change - the managers in the middle of an organisation - can get overlooked.

Our Head of Research, Edward Haigh, surveyed senior executives in more than 50 FTSE350 organisations in the course of our recently published research. One thing we asked them was whether they agreed that the leadership of their organisation was “genuinely and sufficiently committed to achieving gender parity”. 

Our Head of Research, Edward Haigh, reflects on insights from the panel discussion at the launch of our latest research ‘Women in Leadership: Strategies from FTSE 350 organisations leading the way’.

Our Head of Research, Edward Haigh, recently interviewed 25 senior executives in the FTSE 350 companies that are leading the way on gender parity. Since then, he’s been grappling with this enticing question: Could you achieve gender parity in your organisation without mentioning gender in the course of doing so?

Our Head of Research, Edward Haigh, recently conducted interviews with senior executives in about 25 FTSE 350 companies, all of which are leading in terms of the representation of women at the top of their organisation. His aim was to listen to their stories about advancing gender parity and find out what they had in common. In this post, Edward explores some of his findings.

With businesses facing more financial pressure than ever before, coaching for employees might seem like an unaffordable luxury. Can investing in group or individual coaching help you retain employees that are an unknown flight risk? Accelerate high potential talent? Upskill future leaders or foster greater inclusivity and sense of belonging? If your business is keen to retain and progress your talent, in this post our Senior Coach Katie Seaman explores why coaching can be an effective use of resources.

Despite the concerted efforts of so many business leaders, HR and DE&I professionals, why is it, so many organisations are failing to get more women into senior positions in their organisations? There could be a variety of factors.

Our research report Why Women Leave indicates that some of the key factors influencing whether women will stay with their current employer are flexibility (from both a time and location perspective), childcare, the availability and/or extent of special leave, and the amount of work.

With this in mind, how might the new UK Labour Government’s plans (assuming these are implemented and enforced) impact the future of female retention in the workplace?

Given that attrition is one of the most important dynamics at play in the health of any organisation, it’s remarkable how few people can answer a simple question: Why do our people leave?

When collating data on female retention, have we overlooked a breakdown in trust between female employees and their employers? How does age and motherhood impact why women under-report how likely they are to leave? And what can we do about it?

With so many strategies for improving DE&I to choose from, is it time to ask whether a more process, needs-based - rather than outcome-oriented approach, could be more effective?

Diversity and equity are important, but are they what matters most? Or is inclusivity and psychological safety more important? Can a lack of it in the workplace be lethal? In the case of NASA, it caused a space shuttle to fall out of the sky.