Diversity and the future

What the workforce will look like in 10 years’ time will depend to a large degree on the demographic changes we’ve seen in the last 10.

In 2011, 25 per cent of births in Ireland were to mothers from outside of Ireland. “Many of these children, Generation Z, will be part of the workforce by 2032, closely followed by Generation Alpha. So a key change we are going to see in the workforce is increased cultural diversity,” says Daragh Bogan, impactful business programme manager at law firm Matheson.

At the same time, we are living for longer and many people will choose to extend their working lives beyond retirement age, he predicts, “some out of choice and others out of need”.

Building an inclusive workforce isn’t something that can be delayed. “The process needs to start now. Meaningful cultural change, that is, building a truly inclusive workforce, takes time to embed. Ireland is currently going through a seismic demographic shift and employers who focus on developing employee wellbeing programmes, who build cultural intelligence through education programmes, and who foster a sense of ‘belonging’ will be the first to benefit,” he says.

Those that don’t may find their productivity and profitability negatively affected, as diversity and inclusion credentials are increasingly sought by clients as part of tendering processes, he points out.

Employers who fail to foster a diverse and inclusive workforce will also find it more difficult to attract Generation Z and Alpha employees, a risk few organisations can afford to take.

“Cultural intelligence will increase in prominence, as will awareness and understanding of neurodiversity and disability, to ensure employees can bring their whole selves to work,” says Bogan.

In terms of female participation rates in the labour market, numbers have risen significantly yet the occupations they are going to remain stubbornly static.

According to John Hurley, head of employment unit at Eurofound, “although there are many more women at work now than a generation ago, women and men continue to work in different types of jobs”.

A recent Eurofound study of gender gaps and the employment structure shows fewer than one in five workers are in jobs where the workforce includes at least 40 per cent of each gender.

“The increase in women’s employment has been seen largely in jobs where women already predominate, such as education and healthcare,” explains Hurley.

Both are sectors likely to continue expanding in the years to come, while structurally declining sectors, such as agriculture and manufacturing, tend to be dominated by men. Women are also outperforming men educationally. Yet despite these relatively favourable developments, “gender gaps in employment and wages have been contracting only gradually in recent years”, the reports finds.

Challenges inhibiting women from progressing into senior leadership positions will have to be addressed also.

Training in unconscious bias is a good start. “Many organisations have taken actions to address this, such as ‘blind’ evaluation hiring practices, where only the candidate’s qualifications for a role — and not their name and interest areas that may be suggestive of gender — are seen and considered to prevent implicit bias,” says Cyrilla Costello manager client development and tailored solutions at IMI.

“There has also been a strong movement in recent years towards setting diversity hiring goals to ensure companies hold themselves accountable to equitable hiring practices,” she adds.

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The scarcity of role models is another challenge for women. “A lack of visible role models for young female leaders has a detrimental effect on their potential development pathway in their career,” says Costello.

But “the role models that women need are closer than they think. They could be a more senior female leader within your organisation, for example. By seeing and hearing from these role models, women can be shown that the path to working in a given area or at a given seniority level is not as daunting as it appears. Organisations that can facilitate these connections — both within the business and outside of it — can make a step change when it comes to the advancement of women,” she points out.

Women’s “shrinking peer group” will have to be addressed too.

“In Ireland as well as globally, women continue to be underrepresented in organisations and we see the share of women decrease with each step up the corporate ladder. Women make up half of the entry-level workforce so there is no shortage at this point with the pipeline. Typically, however, they comprise only a fifth of the C-suite. This is not due to a lack of ambition but when faced with unconscious bias and limited workplace support, making it to the top can seem like an out-of-reach goal for many.”

The solution here is as simple as affording women the same access to opportunity and support as their male counterparts. “This means putting practices and policies in place that enable women to be their ‘best self’ at work,” says Costello.

“They need equal access to sponsorship and mentorship for example, from both male and female leaders. They furthermore need a working environment that allows them to take advantage of flexible working arrangements to allay any concerns they may have that having children or other caring responsibilities might prevent them from achieving their goals.”

The IMI partners with the 30% Club to develop programmes that help. Its a global campaign led by chairmen/women and chief executives taking action to increase gender diversity at board and senior management levels.

Savvy employers are working with the IMI to take an increasingly proactive approach, including box maker Smurfit Kappa. “At Smurfit Kappa we recognise the critical importance that diversity plays in our vision to be a globally admired business,” says Deirdre Cregan, its group director of talent and leadership development.

The packaging company employs 48,000 employees across 36 countries.

“Our goal in the coming years is to reach 30 per cent females in our business. We have therefore spent a lot of time listening to what our business needs through engagement exercises like our MyVoice Employee Engagement Survey and our EveryOne Inclusion Diversity and Equality programme,” she explains.

“In listening, we paid keen attention to what our female leaders told us what they need to succeed. From there we worked closely with IMI to develop a bespoke leadership development programme which will enable the participants to achieve their full potential.”