Neil Murray, UK and Ireland Regional Chairman of Sodexo, the world’s largest services company, is one of the speakers today (Tuesday 8th March) at the OECD’s conference on closing leadership gaps in both the public and corporate sectors. Also to coincide with International Women’s Day on 8th March, Sodexo held its annual Women Work Conference yesterday and is running three global webinars which aim to help support and achieve gender balance throughout the organisation.
The OECD has identified gender equality as a high priority. In the framework of the OECD Gender Initiative, the OECD is hosting an event on International Women’s Day to contribute to closing leadership gender gaps in public and corporate sectors. Senior decision makers from the public and corporate sectors, experts and academics will share their experiences as to what works and why. The outcome of the discussions will also feed into the development of a joint report.
Neil Murray will be participating in a panel discussion – Forces shaping change; What’s new in today’s landscape in women’s access to leadership positions?’ – and will share Sodexo’s approach to promoting gender balance at every level of its organisation.
Sodexo is committed to gender diversity and has a strong culture of supporting and developing women at all levels. In the UK and Ireland, 29% of its Regional Leadership Committee are women and 27% of senior managers and 48% of middle managers are female.
Last year, Sodexo carried out global internal research to explore the correlation between gender balance and performance. The results showed an impressive correlation between gender balance and performance indicators for growth, profit, employee engagement, brand image and client and consumer satisfaction.
Neil Murray, commenting on the Conference said: “I am delighted to be taking part in the OECD’s conference on a subject which is so important to Sodexo. Our investment in diversity and inclusion is an investment in the growth of our people and also our business. The smartest companies today are appointing more women in leadership, management and executive positions. This isn’t simply because it is the right thing to do; it also attracts customers, drives innovation and impacts profitability.”
On Monday 7th March, Sodexo held its annual Women Work Conference – with a focus on the talent pipeline – where over 100 members of Sodexo’s employee network gathered to hear a range of speakers on promoting gender balance and to participate in workshops on mentoring and using social media and networking to raise one’s profile.
Sodexo is also running three global webinars on the themes of unconscious bias; flexible working and building one’s personal brand. The latter webinar is similar to a workshop we ran for 80 female students at an independent school last year; the workshop was designed specifically for female students and adapted from the programme for Sodexo managers. The workshop aims to help participants think about the importance of building a personal brand which reflects their ambitions and how they can build a network of contacts to help them achieve their goals.
The Sodexo Women’s International Forum for talent (SWIFt) drives the organisation’s gender diversity approach across the globe and is made up of 34 top female and male executives from around the world. In the UK and Ireland, members include Sodexo CEO for Schools Jane Bristow, CEO for Justice Services Janine McDowell and Susan Elston from Energy & Resources.
Janine McDowell, member of the SWIFt workstream in the UK, said: “Sodexo has taken the lead on gender diversity across the globe, so International Women’s Day is an excellent opportunity for us to celebrate with our employees, clients and other stakeholders.
“Through SWIFt we have helped to launch gender networks in 14 countries, provided mentoring opportunities to over 2000 women and run a number of events to share our approach with clients.”
On 3 March Sodexo’s Debbie White, CEO, Global Healthcare & Global Government, was named in the Top 50 Power list at the first Northern Power Women awards.