Before attending the Radius Employee Network Leadership Programme in 2019, the Women’s Network that Gemma led was mainly focussed on events. They were great events and people enjoyed them, but was it really having the impact that they wanted? The network was seen as a “nice to have” but not really linked to what their business wanted to achieve.
Gemma Lee
Co-chair of Women’s Network – Konica Minolta
But what Gemma learnt about strategy, measurement and impact from the programme changed her perspective. Reflecting after the course, she realised that some of the only people that cared about doing something about gender diversity was the network and, in a strongly male industry, that simply wasn’t enough. Nor did they have comprehensive metrics to be able to measure if they were having an impact. She gathered the network together and they picked apart their plans, realising that, whilst events played a role in awareness raising, they had fallen into the trap of “let’s do another educational event about International Women’s Day” and realised that more discrete and tangible actions were needed to really shift the culture of the organisation.
So, they re-thought and, working with the Employee Experience team, came up with a business-linked and impact-focussed strategy, with members of the network directly linked to each area of focus. With a new CEO fully behind them, they are building new strands of focus in areas such as influencing policy change and challenging the speed of progress on actions designed to close their gender pay.
