On 7th December we hosted the first event in our Recruitment Means Diversity Initiative, our Women in Recruitment Roundtable.At 11am on the 7th December I found myself sat in a room full of inspirational and successful women all passionate about one thing, Diversity. Our first ever Women in Recruitment roundtable event brought together a varied group of individuals from within recruitment and outside of it, to discuss the issues that face women in the industry today.
To kick start the day, with the Diversity initiative being so new, we needed to discuss what we wanted to achieve from the roundtable. It was imperative we got some assembly of our objectives, they are as follows:
1. What can we do as individuals to promote Diversity in our businesses and the Recruitment Industry as a whole?
2. What can we at TRN do with them as a collaborative group to drive this initiative forward?
With these in mind, we launched straight into discussions. It was great to see that every single person in the room came with their own thoughts and views on how to move the initiative forward. They all shared their horror stories, with the odd success story thrown in for good measure.
Before the roundtable event we conducted a survey on Women in Recruitment – click here to download – and we discussed the data that we collected at the event. The results to one of the questions in particular were surprising. When asked ‘is there a difference in pay between men and women’, 77% of the respondents answered ‘no’ there isn’t.
Is there a difference in pay between men and women?Something that wasn’t such a shock, was the realisation that as you went up the ladder, the number of women in senior roles within the industry waned. As we know, this issue is prevalent in all industries across the UK and something that all sectors struggle to tackle.
Five key themes that were drawn out from the discussions and survey results were 1. workplace flexibility 2. male dominated sectors 3. careers for women 4. confidence levels in women 5. work life balance
Now, we could have spent all day talking about each one of these areas in particular, but we only had 2 hours in total. With the challenge accepted, our roundtable discussions produced a number of ideas from ensuring that men are invited to our next roundtable (for a diverse range of input!), to setting up a women’s mentoring scheme and highlighting businesses who are doing diversity right. I’m pleased to say that these, among many others, will be forming the basis of our Women In Recruitment initiative in 2018.
We will keep you up to date with our progress, next steps and any upcoming events. If you want to get involved, let us know by completing the contact us form.
A huge thank you goes out to all those founding members of our Women in Recruitment initiative that took time out of their day to join us to discuss such an important topic, and thank you to the SSAFA The Armed Forces Charity for hosting the event.
For more information on our Diversity initiatives and our founding members, click here…
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