What’s Capgemini’s Resolution to Progress Gender Balance in the Workplace in 2018?

What’s Capgemini’s Resolution to Progress Gender Balance in the Workplace in 2018?

As we enter 2018 with eager anticipation, it is a natural part of the transition into the New Year to establish personal and career resolutions. Many business leaders consider ways to refresh the strategy for their organizations seeking to answer questions such as “How can my team help our organization achieve its goals with a greater impact?”

For Capgemini’s North America’s Corporate Responsibility Team, the answer is easy… We understand that to realize sustained change for greater gender equality we must facilitate courageous conversations, identify opportunities for improvements as they arise, and maintain accountability for our progress through measurable goals.

Some context on our current state:

In 2016 and 2017, Capgemini in the US and Canada, respectively, became EDGE Certified. EDGE(http://edge-cert.org/) is the leading global assessment methodology and business certification standard for gender equality. Capgemini was awarded the recognition after a third-party review of its inclusion practices across five dimensions: equal pay for equivalent work, recruitment and promotion, leadership development training and mentoring, flexible working and company culture. This recognition confirms our commitment to gender balance through impactful actions across North America which include new benefits such our back-up care program. We will continue to be an innovative environment where our talent helps our clients transform business through solutions fueled by inclusion, diversity, and team development. Learn more here.

Capgemini’s EDGE Certification set the stage for our thought leadership on diversity measurement in the workplace enabling best practices sharing with other companies and community partners. In 2017, Capgemini sponsored two external events with the Anti-Defamation League’s Women’s Initiative which had cumulative audience totals of 600+ attendees. Capgemini representatives joined other business leaders in addressing global gender balance challenges, and the related topic of unconscious bias.

In July and December of 2017, Capgemini NA hosted its first Women in Digital sessions, in San Francisco and New York City. Capgemini’s Global Women@Capgemini Group created this strategic program to explore how women are driving change as executives navigating organizations through digital disruption to innovation.

Capgemini was also proud to support the National Diversity Council’s Women in Leadership Symposiums (WILS http://wilsymposium.com/). The program’s mission is to bring together a diverse mix of successful women leaders who, through the discussion of topics relevant to today’s issues, educate, inspire and encourage women to reflect on their own goals and status as they strive to move higher in their organizations.

Finally, Capgemini enhanced our Women’s Leadership Development Program (WLDP) to ensure positive impact on the development of our women leaders. As a three-month program designed to provide training, mentoring, career objective-setting, and coaching for women in North America, WLDP is a signature program of the company’s talent development initiatives.

Our resolution for 2018:

We recognize that we need existing and future leaders contributing to the conversation on gender balance and equality in the workplace. This year we will empower our North America Employee Resource Group Leaders to build on last year’s 16,000+ hours of engagement through a focus on deeper partnerships with our leaders and clients to drive accountability across organizations, not only on gender balance but all aspects of diversity and inclusion. In 2018, we will partner with our clients on everything from unconscious bias training to volunteering. We will continue to make progress by holding ourselves accountable to be the change we want to see through our behaviors anchored by our 7 Core Values and leadership commitments. We’ve found past success where our grass roots efforts met our leadership goals and expect this year’s results to take us even further.

Credits:

This blog was also contributed to the Women Change World Blog.

Janet Pope, Capgemini North America Corporate Responsibility Director
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janetppope/

 Yvonne Harris, Capgemini North America Brand Inclusion Leader
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ynharris/