In part I of this blog, we discovered AI’s caliber to bring back humans to recruiting without falling prey to gender bias. Now let’s explore how today’s hi-tech technologies help in retaining the women workforce.

Did you know women’s day is celebrated on March 8 to mark the significance of the women’s movement during the Russian Revolution in 1917 after women gained suffrage or the right to vote in Soviet Russia?

Since we just crossed the women’s day month, I thought of extending the celebration by talking about women entrepreneurship, women workforce retention, women in leadership positions, and technology that retains these women.

In a typical scenario, men were the ones who always lead the board for years dominating the world of business. But gone are the days as women efficiently break the glass ceiling and set an example for all who aspire to become the best version of themselves.

Today, the world witnesses a huge number of female entrepreneurs who are making a big difference in their own little way. Right from women who run a cafeteria to those who deal in multimillion dollars, everybody has a story to narrate.

With the rise of influential women such as Coco Chanel (Chanel), Arianna Huffington (Thrive Global), JK Rowling (Novelist), to name a few, even the Forbes editions shares inspiring stories of female entrepreneurs, female CEOs, female leaders. In essence, they cover aspiring and inspiring ladies with the courage to bring about a change.

You will be surprised to know Forbes, in its very first issue in 1917, broke the news of launching a “unique department” dedicated to women in business (now that is what I call a vision), designed by the magazine to be a regular column edited by women.

Was gender equity a priority during COVID-19?

Despite increased awareness of gender equality and gender diversity issues, during the COVID-19 period, 70% of global businesses did not pay heed to gender equity to be listed as a top priority.

As per highlights of the report COVID-19 and gender equality: Countering the regressive effects, from McKinsey Global Institute,

  • Economic imbalance due to the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately burdened women with unpaid care.
  • This has left women 1.8 times more vulnerable to the side-effect of the pandemic as compared to men.
  • It is essential for policymakers to act now to bridge the gender gap.
  • If the concern is left unchecked, it could negatively impact the global GDP growth.

Why does gender parity matter, and how can technology retain women?

Bridging the gender gap will have a significant impact on the economy. The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020 states that closing gender equality improves an economy’s growth, future-readiness, and competitiveness.

The McKinsey report supports these findings by displaying three scenarios – “do nothing,” “wait to take action,” and “take action now” – to measure the impact the coronavirus pandemic can possibly have on economic performance post the pandemic.

In a gist, taking action now could increase 2030 GDP by USD 13 trillion compared to the “do nothing” scenario.

The role of technology in retaining women at workplaces

The HR department is way beyond recruitment and maintaining the headcount. Responsible for maintaining work culture, balance, and everything right from hire to retire, the HR function deploys various tools and technologies.

AI being the star technology concept for the function, integration of AI into HR practices enables enterprises to clearly predict, diagnose, and analyze to aid HR teams in making better decisions based on unbiased insights.

AI can be embedded in functions such as recruitment, onboarding, performance analysis, and retention. On the contrary, several organizations still lack the integration of AI in the HR function.

How technology can be tapped to retain women

Diversity, inclusion, equity

Kanarys, a platform that fuels more diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplaces and work culture, gets its name from an unusual source that goes back to canaries released in coal mines to check if the environment there was safe for humans to work.

True to its name, the organization aims a similar mission.

As per Star Carter, Co-Founder, COO, and General Counsel of Kanarys, “With our platform, we are doing the same thing by diagnosing if a workplace is healthy for employees.”

Kanarys collaborates with the workforce to offer them a holistic view of diversity, inclusion, and equity with the help of audits, data-driven strategies, and policies supported by AI, machine learning, and Natural Language Processing.

The Kanarys platform can also be used to secretly rate and report DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) issues.

Carter also stated that the company has been encouraging employers to think about real-time issues such as the women workforce leaving amidst the pandemic to handle the issue proactively.

Risk management

As businesses struggle to tackle the ups and downs created over the past year, it was inevitable for several HR leaders to act quickly based on manually generated insights.

Dataminr, a business platform, offers businesses real-time alerts on high-impact events to shape the future by providing a proactive and informed approach.

Powered by AI, Dataminr’s business platform provides organizations real-time alerts of high-impact events and potential risks—some of which could further strap their workforces and influence turnover. The approach can transform reactive people strategies into proactive ones, says Whitney Benner, Chief People Officer at Dataminr.

Workforce analytics

Visier, a leading people analytics and workforce planning platform, deploy cohort analysis to identify groups of women who stay based on tenure criteria and work history.

With this, organizations can track women who started to work simultaneously in the same role and the ones who ended up quitting and comparing them based on their work history and the reason for their exit. This analysis helps identify what builds the difference between the two groups.

Additionally, organizational network analysis can also help throw light on gender differences enabling employers to assess network size based on the weightage of senior and cross hierarchy relationships to help showcase opportunities.

Takeaway

Believe it or not, workplace equality is at risk. Today tech giants like Microsoft, TCS, and IBM are doing their best by rolling out progressive policies to hire, retain, and encourage talent to bridge the gender gap and create equal opportunities with a more refined work culture free of biases.

To strike that balance, employers and the HR department need to take some things seriously. Honestly, getting an unbiased decision is not possible with manual or outdated systems. To get things right, businesses need to invest in HR technologies that offer unbiased solutions.

To learn more about download expert whitepapers on HR solutions and HR technology here.