How to Create a Gender-inclusive Workplace

Whatever sort of business you’re running, it’s a good idea to provide opportunities to all of your would-be workers, regardless of their immutable characteristics. If your hiring policy appeals to women as well as men, so goes the theory, then you’ll effectively double the number of candidates you’re able to select from – which will result in a superior standard for everyone.

On top of this, there are legal reasons to make your workplace inclusive. If your workplace culture is shown to be discriminatory, then you’ll be vulnerable to legal action under the Equality Act 2010. There’s also reputational impact to consider: your would-be clients and customers might be put off your business if they perceive it to be discriminatory.

What is gender inclusivity?

A gender-inclusive workplace provides the same treatment to everyone, regardless of their gender. This might mean proactively looking for potential sources of bias, and seeking to raise awareness of them, so that they might be tackled. 

But how might we go about this in practice?

How to make sure your business is gender inclusive

The first step toward a gender-inclusive business culture is a policy on the subject. Write down what you’d like to achieve and the standards to which you’d like everyone to be held. A good policy might be shaped with the input of your entire workforce – especially those of an underrepresented gender.

A lot of emphasis might be placed on your hiring process. If this part of the business is discriminatory, even if the bias is subtle and unconscious, then there will be knock-on consequences for everyone. 

Under the aforementioned Equality Act, you are forbidden from asking questions about ‘protected characteristics’ like gender. You cannot ask if the candidate plans to have children, for example. 

Research suggests that the wording of your job advert can have a big impact on the kind of candidate who applies. Gendered language, like ‘manpower’, ‘tradesman’, or ‘right man for the job’ are all obviously verboten, but we should also be aware of more subtly masculine cues.

Gender-neutral benefits might also be offered, like shared parental leave. This will give families a chance to make decisions about who stays at home and who goes to work, rather than being bound by traditional gender roles.

Construction and gender inclusivity

There are certain industries which traditionally skew one way or the other when it comes to gender. Around three-quarters of teachers in the UK are female. Midwifery, meanwhile, is around 99.6% female. 

Construction is an industry that tends in the other direction. Around 10% of construction workers are female – and most of these are in office roles, rather than tradespeople. It seems unlikely that the historically male-dominated construction site isn’t playing a role in scaring some potentially competent female workers away.

Site operators might address this in a number of ways. They might provide PPE, including work boots, which are tailored with female proportions in mind. They might provide onsite toilet facilities which cater to women as well as men. But perhaps the most important steps are the ones we see in other industries: have a robust policy against gender discrimination, and enforce it.