What About the Leaders?

We've put our leadership hat on this week and what a great opportunity to let you know about our support for leaders in organisations who need to tackle or just need the know-how of how to manage working mums and dads and put in place support programs to retain employees long-term.

We talk so much about supporting working mums and dads and place importance on achieving diversity in business and in our teams. But what about our leaders and managers whose responsibility it is to successfully retain their team members, with the help of their HR department of course.

An article released by hr daily today suggests that diversity is achieved through appropriate leadership management. Alison Tickner, Mercer's head of leadership, diversity and learning solutions for Asia Pacific, says "There is a war for talen on and therefore the organisation or the leaders who show real commitment to that diversity and inclusion agenda and are able to demonstrate that... [will find that] people are going to be more attracted to wanting to be a part of that organisation because they're going to get themselves heard."

Mercer's report: Diversity and Inclusion: an Asia Pacific Perspective shows that when diversity and inclusion strategies are not linked directly to business strategy and the overall performance of managers, they tend to lose momentum and effectiveness.

The article offers 3 tips for organisations to consider:
1. Measure and track the levels of diversity in the organisation
2. Focus on what matters most to the business
3. Communicate diversity effectively through the organisation and communicate it to everyone

mums@work offers seminars and workshops, run internally in organisations to assist managers in dealing with achieving diversity in the fields of career and parenthood, work/life balance, flexibility, child care, ageing workforce, retirement transition and financial planning. Emma Walsh, Director of mums@work says "Employers can choose from 1-2hour Lunch and Learn informal seminars or customised full-day workshops, delivered internally for employees and managers."

For ideas on the content of these seminars, follow this link: http://www.mumsatwork.com.au/employers-training.html 

Diversity is on everyone's agenda. It's now about finding out how to approach it at the organisational level to achieve success.


Author: Elysha Stephens, Marketing & Communications Consultant, mums@work