What this years “International Womens’ Day theme #InspireInclusion means to me

I am the proud owner of Change Grow Succeed which is a training and coaching consultancy practise. Essentially, I help my clients find focus and clarity enabling them to perform and get results in the areas of their life that they value. However, my passion, is to help women recognise, articulate and act on their greatest strengths.

This IWD, we are invited to #InspireInclusion. When we inspire others to understand and value inclusion, we forge a better world.

When we truly #inspireinclusion at work, we create an environment where all employees feel respected, relevant, and empowered, regardless of their background or gender. This, in turn boosts employee engagement, creativity, collaboration and overall productivity. Therefore, by prioritizing inclusion, workplaces are better positioned to harness the full potential of their diverse workforce.

Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace isn’t just a moral imperative but it makes good business sense. There have been countless studies completed that reveal that increased diversity in our workplace optimises innovation, creativity not to mention financial performance. However, to reap the benefits of a diverse workforce, it’s vital to have an inclusive environment where everyone feels able to participate and achieve their potential. Paying lip service to this concept is not enough.

How do we inspire inclusion? It entails an individual- centric approach and thus, starts with challenging the assumptions we make about people and instead, choose to engage curiosity and empathy with our colleagues to connect and meaningfully understand their needs.When we #inspireinclusion we take personal responsibility for driving meaningful change that has value, not only in the workplace but in our homes and communities as well.

I’m looking forward to partnering with several organisations over the coming month to help them celebrate International Women’s Day. My talks will be themed on humanizing inclusion and challenging attendees to consider the common barriers to inclusion, they will review the role of our most powerful allies (our male colleagues!) in creating an inclusive environment and I will share tangible tips themed around the theme ‘inspire’ that folks can implement straight away.

Inclusion is a necessary pillar for a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world. Let’s be role- models to ourselves and for each other, Let’s humanise our workplaces and create environments where everyone feels that they can participate and where everyone feels they belong. We can all be winners.

Hope and Everyday Courage (IWD 2021)

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Being invited to share my thoughts by several clients to mark IWD over the past number of weeks has been a privilege. There’s no doubt that the pandemic has intensified the challenges faced by women, and I firmly believe that the pandemic has also thrown opportunities up for all of us. Leaning into the moral message of inclusivity, owning our roles in enabling diversity and equity as well as empathetic leadership, we can all play a part in mitigating the risk of losing women in leadership roles and future female leaders.

We know that there have been countless studies carried out that advocate the business case for increased diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. In fact, benefits regularly cited include innovation, creativity, inclusivity, performance and financial results. We also know that pandemic has intensified the challenges that women already face (as highlighted by Deloitte in the image above). In fact, the initial research indicates that the pandemic could set women in the workplace back by a decade.  This situation is now an emergency for employers globally as companies risk losing women in leadership and future female leaders as well as unwinding years of painstaking progress.

This years’ theme tells us that “an alert world is a challenged world” and with this awareness there is opportunity to address and tackle these challenges. In my talks, I shared 5 themes that I believe will be the difference for teams and businesses placing diversity, equity, inclusion, and empathetic leadership at the centre. Also, I have been heartened by the encouraging responses and feedback to my tips aimed at how we, as individuals, can lean into the moral message of #choosetochallenge by channelling acts of every day #courage.

Leadership is not about titles but rather a series of behaviours. How can you be the difference while accepting full responsibility for your thoughts and behaviours?

Gillian McGrath is a Cork based facilitator and leadership coach. For more information, go to http://www.changegrowsucceed.com

Be Bold and Take Hold of your Career

The theme of this years’ International Womens Day is ‘Be Bold for Change’ .

What can be “bolder” than changing careers?  At this time of year we often begin to reflect on where we’re at, where we want to be etc. The ‘New Year New You’ momentum is dissipating and we begin to ask questions of ourselves.  Does this resonate with you?

• Work is the same ‘ole, same ‘ole but what can I do?
• I would love a change but where would I start?
• Today was crazy busy but why do I feel like I got nothing done?
• I would love to change jobs but how can I when life is so busy with the kids?

Feedback from the women I meet is that this unrest can often trickle into their personal lives and the frustration and stress of being in a job that they don’t really like anymore. Changing job or even career is definitely on the cards but where to start? Recruitment Websites? Update a C.V.? And then, there’s the challenge of time “I’m already up to 90 with school runs/ nappies- where would I find the time to research a new job- I wouldn’t even know where to start!”

My advice is to start at the beginning which is around identifying your skills and interests. We are products of our environment which is constantly changing. As our priorities or circumstances change, we adapt accordingly. Thus, what may have attracted us to a position 5 years ago may not appeal to us anymore. If you want to change your career, it’s imperative to identify what ‘floats your boat’ now. Constructive evaluation is key to this process. But where or  how to start?

Here are the tips I would like to share with you if you feel the need to professionally re- evaluate:

1. Buy a notebook (create your own ‘Career Change 2017’ portfolio!)

 

2. Reflect on your previous roles/ jobs and make a note (in aforementioned notebook!) of the aspects you enjoyed while working there- think specifically about the tasks and responsibilities, the environment and the people

 

3. Make a note your top achievements in your career history and what gave you the greatest sense of pride

 

4. Complete an interest inventory. These questionnaires are designed to capture your interests and map them onto career sectors! There are some great websites out there and I would recommend http://www.careersportal.ie/ and navigate to the ‘Self- Assessment’ section. Remember the input will determine the output so take the time and go with your gut!

 

5. Psychometric Assessment is a fantastic resource to further understand your strengths and abilities (and areas for development!)- alot of the ‘good ones’ are licensed and thus, come at a fee but there are some nice freebies out there which will help to boost your awareness. I recommend http://www.humanmetrics.com/ and http://www.cmi-lmi.com/kingdomality.html

 

6. Start looking for patterns in the feedback above and align this with your own notes from pointers 2 and 3 (above)

 

7. Now, you have the opportunity to make informed choices about employment sectors/ roles or maybe you have now decided that you need to retrain? If this is the case, look no further than qualifax.ie which is a centralised resource for ALL COURSES running in Ireland. Enter your county, some keywords (again, based on your research) and away you go!

A career coach will assist you in this journey, provide support through your research, educate you on tips and tricks of the trade and offer you choices and resilience as you prepare to make the change.

Be Bold. Make a change. Grow. Succeed.

Good luck with it!

 

Gillian McGrath is a Cork based Life and Business coach who also specialising in career change. She is founder of www.changegrowsucceed.com. For more information, please contact her directly.