Silvina, President and Co Founder of TransparentBusiness and CEO of SheWorks!, working with Maricruz from SheWorks! Photo Credit: Endeavor

On Labor Day, make work, work for women, embracing technologies that make remote work efficient and accountable while breaking the barriers that separate talented women from opportunities.

It’s Labor Day! A day to celebrate all workers who have contributed to the success of America. Throughout the last decades, women have reached traditionally male industries and occupations, and conquered many battles in society including the workplace. 

However, amidst the digital revolution, 51% of women with children have to leave the workforce due to rigid and analogic models. A massive loss of talent and money for the companies, society and economy overall. 

In the past decade, the working world has made vast changes in the hiring landscape and sourcing talent globally. With new innovations and disruptive technologies it’s time to challenge companies to embrace digital transformation and make work flexible, remote, and transparent in a way that works for everyone, regardless of age, sex, location, disability, ethnicity or religion. 

Companies are having to face many new challenges when it comes to talent acquisition making it clear that a more proactive approach needs to be in place if they want to address these imbalances when scaling and diversifying their team.  There are thousands of studies, articles, statistics, (you name it!) that shows the need to diversify your team when hiring. This not only opens the talent spectrum but also fosters creativity, brings new ideas to the table, and holds value in having a difference in opinions and/or perspectives making it easy to solve complex problems when they arise. Diversity wins on all levels – companies have higher productivity, higher revenue, higher employee retention, and so on … With all the studies and articles to support this approach, why are companies still lacking in diversity?

To attract and retain new talent and support an inclusive work environment, employers should be shifting their focus and throwing their current hiring strategy out the window. We are living in a perfect storm of innovation – cloud technology, machine learning, data science, algorithms and a complete shift towards the on-demand economy. Times are changing, flexibility is no longer a “nice to have” and the words “work from home” are no longer taboo. So, what does this mean for employers? — Adopting more flexible working arrangements, leveraging technology to manage a remote workforce, investing in online collaboration tools, all of which support closing the unemployment gap and bringing more women into the workforce. 

We’re here to address all the issues of finding global talent and managing a remote workforce, (really, there shouldn’t be any!) however, here are a few insights for employers just getting their feet wet in the new world of work. 

“I have a pipeline issue.”

No you don’t, you have a perimeter issue.  If you plan on looking for talent within a four block radius — you will always have a so called pipeline issue. However, open your talent search globally finding millions of available candidates that are right for the job. 

“I’m not finding the right skills.”

There are a couple ways to look at this; 1. Open your talent search globally and allow yourself to find millions of candidates; and the ability to filter by all the specifications and skills you’re looking for – game changer.  

2. Put on your “big picture” lenses and broaden your search range to compatible fields. Many skills are transferable; hiring from a talent pool with base skills in a different field that are easily moldable allows room for growth and the ability to rewrite processes or bring in new innovative ideas to your business.   

“I don’t trust remote contractors.”

Just because you can’t see a person physically working at their desk, doesn’t mean the work isn’t getting done. This is a huge mental block when hiring a distributed team. Now, leveraging the power of cloud technology to manage, monitor, pay, and provide feedback to your workforce enforce values of trust, engagement, and accountability to your business culture. 

“Communication is key – if my team is across the world, how do we communicate?”

We live in the digital era: Skype, WhatsApp, Zoom, Slack, Webex, Hangouts. Better yet, consider investing in an all inclusive platform. SheWorks! is a platform which aims to break down the barriers that separate the talent from the opportunities – enabling women from around the world to find education and job opportunities that fit into their lives. For employers, this means tapping into a talent pool where they can find the best person for the job, wherever they are located in the world. SheWorks!, using the TransparentBusiness technology allows employers to engage with the right talent, and provide the tools to monitor, manage, collaborate, and pay their distributed teams. 

All in all, there are no excuses – period. 

A company’s workforce needs to reflect the diversity of talent available globally to drive innovation and maximize the strengths of all of their employees. Diversity and flexibility should no longer be an unreachable goal, but an imperative business practice for every company. Let’s celebrate this #LaborDay by advancing workplace policies and advocating for a more inclusive working world for all genders.