International Women's Day 2023 - how do we #embraceequity?
By Sophia Voce
International Women's Day 2023 #embraceequity
Today we are honouring International Women’s Day. A day for celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women around the world.
This is a day to celebrate women’s achievements, educate and drive awareness for women’s equality and call for positive change advancing women. Today we also recognise a call to action for accelerating gender parity.
How do we distinguish between equality and equity?
This year, the International Women’s Day theme is #embraceequity. In this article we delve into the meaning of embracing equity and explore the difference between equality and equity what this means to us at VWA.
The IWD 2023 #EmbraceEquity campaign theme seeks to get the world talking about why "equal opportunities are no longer enough" - and can in fact be exclusionary, rather than inclusive.
In simple terms, we can define equality as giving all individuals the same resources or opportunities. Equity in turn, recognises that individuals have different circumstances and therefore need differing resources and opportunities in order to achieve an equal outcome.
This is demonstrated brilliantly in the illustration below:
Image source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
This is delved into further on the IWD website:
“Equity can be defined as giving everyone what they need to be successful. In other words, it's not giving everyone the exact same thing. If we give everyone the exact same thing, expecting that will make people equal, it assumes that everyone started out in the same place - and this can be vastly inaccurate because everyone isn't the same.
The concept of 'fairness' can get tricky as it's often assumed that 'being fair' means that everybody gets the same thing. Often, this has been taught when we were growing up, but 'fairness' really only works when we're all the same to start out with.”
VWA Founder, Victoria Wall notes that, “Ultimately, we look at individuals through a lens of openness to understand their individual needs and provide equal opportunities. Equity comes into play when we adapt and adjust how we support them, having understood their needs and aspirations.”
So what does this mean to us as Recruitment Consultants at VWA?
How do we apply this to how we advise our clients and candidates? The key is to recognise and embrace diversity; of both clients and candidates.
When we conduct an interview with a candidate, we don’t just ask a set series of questions and tick boxes. We listen, adapt and shape the discussion so we can really get to know each individual. In order to give the best guidance, it’s essential we recognise a candidate’s unique strengths, weaknesses, goals and ambitions. With this depth of understanding, we can arm our candidates with the right tools and resources to enable them to perform at their best in an interview and achieve their ambitions.
Delving deeper, Victoria explains that, “VWA practises equity in 2 ways. Firstly we consider the right client environment for our candidates to go into; one which will provide them with the right tool kit to thrive. Example factors we consider include, the right development plan, level of support, management leadership style and training opportunities. Secondly we provide every candidate with individual briefing and support to lead them successfully through the interview and assessment process. This includes tailored interview training and feedback throughout the process.”
Like to find out more? We’d love to chat! Drop us an email at recruit@vwa.com and one of our Consultants will be in touch.
Finally, whatever #embraceequity means to you, International Women’s Day 2023 is a great time to reflect and to celebrate the great women in our lives. Today VWA is celebrating each and every one of the brilliant and unique women in our team.
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