iSAW and Unily – UNITE 21
Thank you for participating in Unily’s recent Unite 21 conference. We hope you also joined and appreciated the session on gender equality in the workplace, led by Nancy Speidel and Martin Elliot from iSAW (international Smart Advancing Women). For those of you who were not able to attend this session, it is available on demand and can be found here. We promised to follow-up on the questions asked by participants which we were unable to address at the time. Our answers to these are found below.
If you are interested in learning more about how iSAW could help your organisation advance gender equality for better business outcomes, please see the attached iSAW brochure and please contact Nancy Speidel (CEO and co-Founder of iSAW) at nancy.speidel@isaw.org.
Q – What’s one thing any enterprise can start today to help women in the workplace?
A – The first step would be to understand your Gender Equality metrics and the scope of the mixed opportunities that are available.
Q – What do you think is the most powerful part of your platform?
A – The fact we have created a social media experience – on steroids – and a global community that is laser-focused on advancing gender equality on a global scale is most definitely the most powerful parts of our platform. iSAW is all about using social media for GOOD!
Q – What are the top 3 aspects of the Unily platform that have helped you in pursuing your mission?
A – The top three aspects are the platform’s ability to:
- Reach women worldwide, in their local language, to create a global impact
- Target content that is relevant to each individual woman based on their location, professional and personal interests
- Organize and classify a vast amount of information that can be interrogated by the user at their fingertips.
Q – What are some best practices for promoting DEI in our workplaces?
A – Companies need to have an integrated approach, connecting the “WHY” (how it is important to their business strategy) to the “WHAT” (what levers can they pull to accelerate change), to the “HOW” (what tools can they implement to maximize impact).
Q – How do you think an organization should evolve, now that many people are working remotely which means less and less human contact.
A – Without face-to-face interaction we need to use the power of technology to connect people. There needs to be a balance between virtual scheduled meetings and viral fluid experiences. It is more important than ever that companies embed a strong culture through DEI to help their employees feel valued, connected, and included. Multiple engagement models and communication is key!
Q – Do you have any competitors in this space?
A – We do not actually think of other organizations as competitors – this is such a big challenge to solve that we want to have as many of us in this space as possible. Indeed, we have an ethos where we wish to support such organizations to achieve a collective impact on gender equality.
However, we did a competitive analysis on this using a Master’s program at Florida International University and the bottom-line was that iSAW provides a distinctive an innovative approach which does not exist elsewhere.
The key competitive differentiators are:
- Global reach and impact business model with charitable purpose
- The iSAW Culture
- iSAW’s LIFT leveraging Unily’s award winning and robust technology
- International Thought Leaders
- GRID – Gender Research and Insight Data
- Corporate and Member Gender Benchmarks
Q – What role can men play in the fight for gender parity?
A – Men need to see this is not a zero-sum game, they don’t lose anything from women achieving gender parity – there are plenty of opportunities for everyone. Gender diversity is a way for companies to widen their talent search, increase team productivity, and gain a fresh perspective and ideas.
Men can help by not just being an ally (change supporter), but as also being an advocate (change driver) for Gender Equality. We need men with courage to have the difficult conversations with other men, helping raise awareness and support for Gender Equality. Men also need a mindset shift, removing male misogyny from the workplace. Calling out bad behaviors when the see it or hear about it.
Q – How do you plan on achieving such a lofty goal, connecting women worldwide?
A – Our approach is local, global, and charitable. We all know technology can change the world; we are using technology to disrupt the status quo in a way that can touch millions of women and allies worldwide in their local language. Our unique business model also allows us a global reach. Working with local and international corporations is one aspect of our model. The other important aspect is the business model was designed as a franchise model that engages directly at a local country level, creating business opportunities for local women, while supporting them globally. The iSAW Foundation is the charitable arm of iSAW to support additional opportunities to accelerate women advancement.
Q – How do you manage to recognize that the changes are coming true? in number terms of number.
A – Change can be measured both by quantitative and qualitative data. The organization needs to evaluate progress by 1) seeing gender balance improve at all levels of the organization and 2) measure their maturity to achieve Gender Balance base industry best in-class. iSAW has a benchmarking program, playbook and business case integration model to help organizations accelerate transformational change and measure performance.
Q – Is the content all US based or does it filter content from around the world?
A – Content is classified as local country, regional and/or global, so it is easily targeted based member’s location. It is also classified based on the content topic, so filtering can be done by both location and topic. This was a fundamental design of iSAW LIFT. Content needs to be relevant to women, locally, regionally, and globally.
Q – That’s a great site. What do the metrics tell you are the most viewed pages/widgets?
A – ISAW LIFT has a lot of interaction in our Social Connect Channels. Once our members personalize and choose their areas of interest, the majority of their time is interacting through the social, with peers and experts
Q – What do you see as the greatest barrier standing in the way of gender parity?
A – The world of work has been built by men for men. It reflects their preferences, showcases and values male ways of doing things and continues to promote male role. Deconstructing and re-inventing the workplace to be more inclusive is key to welcoming more diverse talent.
Q – What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced?
A – The secret sauce in what we are offering needs the community aspect, and therefore we need to find customers who are willing to be early adopters and help us innovate and grow; this conference coincides with our opening for business to enterprise customers and so perhaps some of your organizations may be part of this early stage of the journey
