To be competitive in today’s market, we must embrace creativity and innovation—and innovation thrives on diverse perspectives. It’s impossible to achieve this diversity without ensuring equal opportunities for all.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) involves fostering diversity, ensuring equity, and promoting inclusion at all organizational levels. This means engaging employees of all genders, ethnicities, cultures, identities, and opinions in the organization’s growth. Equity means ensuring fair access to opportunities and resources for all employees, while inclusion means creating an environment where everyone feels valued and accepted.
A compelling analogy by Robert Sellers, Chief Diversity Officer at the University of Michigan, illustrates the concept: “Diversity is where everyone is invited to the party; equity means everyone gets to contribute to the playlist; inclusion means everyone has the opportunity to dance.”
Implementing DEI in practice
While DEI can enhance a company’s reputation and attract socially conscious talent and clients, it’s often reduced to a branding exercise. In reality, true changes are slow, frequently excluding employees at all levels, and organizations often lack clarity on how DEI ties to business results.
Gender pay gap: A key to equality
The SELECTIO index, which tracks the proportion of women in company boards within the CROBEX Index, stood at 19.4% in 2024, down from 22.2% in 2023.
For comparison, FTSE 350 companies in the UK report a 40% representation of women in boards, showing growth. Furthermore, across the EU, women occupy 34.7% of board seats, also on an upward trajectory.
In terms of wages, women in the EU earn 13% less per hour than men on average. This gender pay gap measures the difference between the average gross hourly earnings of employed women compared to men. The reasons behind this pay gap are complex, and to address these disparities, the EU has introduced directives aiming to reduce the gap to 5% or less.
However, before equal pay there is a zero step, which is ensuring qual opportunities for all employees. Equal opportunities include leadership programs and other education for career development and advancement to the entire talent pool, as well as mentorship programs and similar programs to empower those talents who need additional encouragement. How important such programs are to women is shown by the fact that as many as 54% of women declare that some form of mentoring program was crucial for their career development. Of course, equal opportunities do not only include career development. They start already in the job advertisements, which must be gender-neutral and open to everyone who has the competencies, knowledge and skills necessary for the position.
Of course, unlike the difference in wages (pay gap) which can be expressed quantitatively, the opportunities for equal opportunities that employers (don't) offer are more difficult to measure.
As many as 76% of workers would consider changing jobs if faced with an unfair pay gap
Frederick Herzberg, psychologist and pioneer of motivational theory, described and explained salary as a basic need. When employees perceive that pay is distributed unequally and unfairly, their satisfaction drops drastically.
Imagine a situation where a woman earns less than her male colleague for performing the same job. In such a case, pay inequality leads to a perception of injustice. Efforts to diminish the sense of unfairness—such as offering other benefits—are ineffective, even if these include flexible working hours, which women often rank as one of the main factors influencing whether they stay with an organization or seek other career opportunities.
In addition to valuing flexibility and fairness, women at the same level as men invest more time and energy into effectively managing people, relationships, and DEI practices. Moreover, the likelihood that a woman will leave a leadership position to join an organization more committed to DEI practices is 1.5 times greater than that of a man in the same position.
According to the ADP Research Institute, 76% of employees would consider changing jobs if they encountered a gender pay gap or a lack of DEI initiatives in their workplace.
Within two years, after the introduction of new EU Directives, pay equality will become one of the measures by which employees can assess a company's genuine commitment to at least one aspect of the DEI concept. Employees will also be able to choose an employer actively striving to reduce gender-based pay disparities. Pay transparency includes defining pay ranges and communicating these to each employee. In addition to transparency, employers will need to focus on three key objectives: eliminating bias, analysing pay disparities, and ensuring access to education.
Eliminating bias
Eliminating bias involves raising awareness of both conscious and unconscious bias, particularly in recruitment processes, as well as when considering whom to promote or include in additional training and education programs.
Calculating the unadjusted pay gap
The unadjusted pay gap refers to the difference between the average gross hourly wages of men and women working in companies with more than ten employees, excluding overtime pay. This calculation does not consider differences in worker or job characteristics such as education, work experience, sector, or company size.
Calculating the adjusted pay gap
The adjusted pay gap measures the difference in pay between men and women with identical levels of education and experience, working in the same industry and holding the same position. While this calculation provides a more realistic insight into pay disparities compared to the unadjusted pay gap, it does not account for indicators often associated with discrimination and unequal opportunities, such as salary negotiation skills and job preferences.
Companies that have successfully taken initial steps toward reducing pay disparities are awarded the Equal Pay Champion certification.
Access to education
No career advancement is possible without prior investment in the development of social and professional skills. This is why soft skills training and programs that empower untapped talent are crucial. Programs like Equal Play Mentorship can be an excellent growth opportunity for many women who aspire to professional development but are unsure where to start.
At the beginning of the Equal Play Mentorship program, all participants undergo a 360° assessment and a leadership assessment centre to evaluate their key mentoring and leadership competencies. The program also includes Belbin team-building sessions, which support participant motivation, foster mentoring dynamics, and encourage networking. Upon completing the Equal Pay Mentorship program, all participants undergo another 360° assessment, while mentees also revisit the leadership assessment centre to measure their progress in key mentoring and leadership competencies.
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