ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

Industry expert Grazia Polidori highlights the benefits of implementing effective diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) in the workplace. She also discusses how organisations can foster a more inclusive workplace that empowers women.

Variety is the spice of life. If ‘diversity’ is another word for ‘variety’, how can it flavour the world?

Gender equality is giving all genders equal treatment when it comes to rights, responsibilities and opportunities. Gender Equity, meanwhile, is about fairness. To ensure everyone has equal opportunities, we need to consider privilege, bias and other parameters that can limit how people access opportunities. Equity takes into consideration a person’s unique circumstances, adjusting treatment accordingly so that the end result is equal.

Inclusion refers to how organisations enable employees to make meaningful contributions by feeling their voices are heard. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) describes three values organisations strive to implement in order to meet the needs of people.

Companies that are diverse, equitable and inclusive are better able to respond to challenges, win the talent, better support employees and meet the needs of different customer bases.

Benefits of DE&I

Most employees support diversity with a positive overall sentiment. Companies with gender diversity within executive teams are  more likely to have above-average profitability (correlation between diversity and business performance). The most gender-diverse companies see a substantial differential likelihood of outperformance (correlation between gender diversity representation and outperformance likelihood).

In addition to profitability, there are five key domains in which DE&I can affect organisations’ performance:

• Winning talent: Organisations monitoring the demographic profile of their workforces are better able to retain top performers while making sure that diverse talent isn’t lost.

• Improving the quality of decision making: Diversity brings multiple perspectives to the table when enhanced problem-solving skills and vision are needed.

• Increasing customer insight and innovation: Diverse teams are typically more innovative and better at anticipating shifts.

• Driving employee motivation and satisfaction: Companies committed to diversity are 75 per cent more likely to report a pro-teamwork culture.

• Improving a company’s global image and license to operate: Companies that increase their focus on D&I during crises avoid consequences such as struggling to attract talent or losing customers and government support.

Areas of action for DE&I

Ensure that diverse talent is well represented. Strengthen leadership accountability and capabilities. Be fair and transparent, enabling equality of opportunity. Promote openness and tackle microaggression, bias and discrimination. Foster belonging through unequivocal support for all the ways diversity manifests.

Issues faced by women

Women’s representation in the corporate pipeline has increased. But women remain significantly underrepresented in leadership. At every step in the career ladder, women still lose ground to men. The ‘broken rung’ problem remains a challenge, particularly for those seeking their first step up from entry level to manager.

Microaggression, bias, discrimination and sexism are unfortunately common at the workplace in a still male-dominated world. Burnout, stress and exhaustion continue to affect women more than men.

Female leaders are doing considerable work to support DE&I efforts and employee well-being, but they’re not necessarily being recognised for it

Companies must ensure promotions are equitable. Beyond reducing potential bias in the hiring process, companies need to extend similar rigour to performance reviews. It’s necessary to track representation and hiring and promotion outcomes more fully. A company may track representation for women overall, but does it break those numbers down to look at representation for women?

Companies need to double their efforts when it comes to accountability. Not even half of companies make real progress on diversity goals and even fewer consider progress on diversity metrics in performance reviews.

To create a culture that embraces and leverages diversity, companies need to promote senior-level sponsorship, with top leaders fully and publicly supporting DE&I efforts, modelling inclusive leadership and actively participating in training and events.

Spurring high employee engagement is fundamental. Raising awareness of the barriers women face can help and further training on bias can take employees from awareness to action.

Burnout is on the rise and investing in solutions to help address it remains a crucial issue for organisations. Companies can track symptoms and establish new norms to improve the everyday experience of employees.

They can repair the broken rung on the career ladder for women in technical industries and roles in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). Did you know that only 25.2 per cent of the people working in AI in Europe are women? What does this mean? In my view, there is definitely bias happening.

Top 10 tips

• Create and invest in D&I projects, policies and norms
• Free companies from gender stereotypes changing culture
• Teach men how to work with empowered women
• Promote and support gender equality on the basis of merit
• Free female leadership
• Ensure equal pay for men and women
• Ensure equal representation of
women at company level on boards and governing bodies
• Invest in training women for up- and re-skilling
• Support working mothers with specific projects
• Support women not to give up work because of motherhood or other reasons.

My own story

From a very young age I studied languages in order to travel the world, get closer to people and learn about different cultures. I have over 20 years experience in sales and marketing for an international  brand in the cleaning industry. I have been responsible for sales, profits, market share capture and business growth. My passion is motivating and empowering people. I believe it’s possible to drive performance by understanding the cultural nuances of doing business in different countries while thinking and acting globally.

Knowing how to really listen to people with attention and care is so important, especially to those who tell their story by putting their life in your hands. I get emotional by listening to people’s stories and people’s emotions.

Business is business and I enjoy that in itself. But the real satisfaction comes from relationships with people. Relationships are associated with better health and longer life, as we are social animals, and I am truly inspired by people.

I am passionate and active in women’s rights and gender justice and in those areas I am doing my best to drive change. I try to give my best as role model, guest speaker and mentor for the active, conscious and determined participation of women that will ensure the achievement of equal opportunities for women’s full equality.

In 2021 I was named extremely honoured to be named among the top women for Women’s Leadership in Italy by Donna Impresa magazine. In my ‘Up, Close & Personal’ interview in that magazine, I explained why the world needs more women in leadership roles.

In 2023 I decided to become more personally and proactively involved. I joined different Italian women’s associations and international women’s communities, becoming  an ambassador for Donne 4.0., Women at Business, Female Leaders in Cleaning and Women for Women International. All have a common purpose - to help women achieve gender equality and prepare future business leaders.

It is so powerful to share values and exchange ideas through international networking and communities, discussing what to do then doing it. I believe freedom, independence, respect of human rights - which means women’s rights - is a global purpose. And I strongly believe women united are stronger to speak up and be heard. Female skills are a fundamental resource that business needs, desperately and right now. Women bring a distinct perspective which leads to stronger economies and better societies. Wanting to experience a brighter future is only productive when combined with action taken today!

And I mainly fight for - with a lot of other women - economic independence, my body my rules and advancing women in the industry. Gender equality is a net positive, it only has benefits and those benefits are felt by everyone.Inspirational quoteBe intentional about what you do and who you are. Be intentional with your energy. Be intentional with your time. Be intentional with your words. Be intentional with your craft. Be intentional with your breathing. Be intentional with your heart. Be intentional with your habits. Be intentional with your focus. Be intentional with your self-talk. Be intentional with your life. This is your power.

Conclusion

Nobody says it’s easy to be a woman in a male-dominated world. And nothing can be taken for granted when it comes to female issues. We need to speed up and accelerate action to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment by 2030, as part of UN SDGs: Goal 5.

Making women protagonists in the new global challenge, building a brighter future, as women bring distinct perspectives leading to stronger economies and better societies!