Initiating and Sustaining Women Advancement Initiatives

Last night a friend and I were conversing on the topic of weaving women leadership and career advancement initiatives in the work place.  Often times these initiatives, while having good intentions, often get disbanded when the enthusiast leaves the company or a new executive has other initiatives top of mind.

So how do you not only create momentum to foster growth and development of women at your office, but sustain it for the long haul so it’s not another fly by night initiative?

1. Linkage to Company’s Strategic Plan

“Weave through the Fabric of Everything We Do.”  I hear that often.  But how can you do that without knowing that your women’s initiative is tied to the ultimate fabric of your company – the strategic plan.  Make sure that there are goals like “improving the diversity of our workforce”, “encouraging leadership development of our employees” be high level goals that are set out in the strategic plan such that a women’s advancement initiative can be set as a program to help achieve that strategic goal.

2. Leadership and Investment to Manage Initiative

It needs to be set as part of someone’s, or a group of people’s jobs, to build and sustain the initiative.  If the initiative is volunteer based and not tied to someone’s goals and objectives the program will potentially flounder and lack steam to be successful.  It will also show that leadership, though may say is wanting to foster advancement, isn’t executing on that vision without making it someone’s job to execute the vision.  This also means there should be some funding for the initiative, for example for quarterly luncheons or to go to external training and programming to bring back to the company.

3. Annual Initiative Goal Setting and Success Measurement

Lastly, the only way you know you are making an impact is to be able to put in place measures and metrics to show the programs success, or where to continue to adopt the program to prove fruitful in advancing women within your company.

It will probably take 3-5 years before you know your program is a hit, so ensure your company knows the investment they are getting ready to embark on before pre-maturely giving it the axe if it doesn’t show results in the first year.  Hence, make sure you have the backing you need to build a long lasting program to build and grow your women from within.

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