This International Women's Day, lean on proof (of skill, of impact and of potential)
Author and consultant Verna Myers once said that "Diversity is being invited to the party; inclusion is being asked to dance." But to know the steps of the dance, you must practice, and it is through hands-on, real-world practice that women will make strides in the workplace and boardroom.
A worrying confidence gap
There has been progress in women's representation over the past decade, but a gap remains and there is a risk that career advancement will be stifled this year amid competing business priorities. Simultaneously, four in five women are potentially being held back in their progression due to a lack of confidence and visibility.
Hands-on proof
Hands-on experiences hold the key to resolving this, in collaboration with gaining senior buy-in, mentoring, and building workplace cultures that accommodate childcare and other commitments.
For women in technology, having tangible proof of skill, linked to business impact, provides a clear, data-driven proof point that can be brought up for sponsorship and mentoring, promotion and other career advancement opportunities. Bringing hands-on experiences to your technology training and enablement, for example, can lead to improvements in user adoption, customer satisfaction scores, upselling opportunities, and other business-critical metrics. Any training leader, no matter their gender, who can bring this to their senior stakeholders will draw positive attention for their efforts.
Practise builds performance
Equally, providing hands-on opportunities to practice and assess skill levels in employees can level the playing field for all. Allowing individuals to practice new skills can help bridge that aforementioned confidence gap that's stopping advancement for many women.
When skills assessment is combined with hands-on testing of a person's understanding, it provides detailed performance-based data that cannot be as easily disputed as inferred skill or content completion metrics. An individuals can complete a task to the required level, within the right timeframes, using the right technologies, to prove that they know what they're doing and can apply their knowledge on the job. Whether that job is a new opportunity, a stretch project, or progression.
Various hands-on options available
To deliver such hands-on experiences, there are a few options.
- Stretch assignments, shadowing, and temporary redeployments.
- Hackathons, bootcamps and virtual IT labs
- Mentoring and buddy programs
- Volunteering and side projects
Stretch assignments and shadowing
Each has different pros and cons. For example, stretch assignments and shadowing allow employees to experience different parts of the business and potentially make new connections in other teams. They can build holistic understanding of the company and test new opportunities before formally accepting a change. However, stretch assignments and shadowing can be limited to a handful of employees, they are difficult to scale, and in some organizations, may be offered to connections of the hiring manager and prone to bias. They are also not accessible to those in a different location.
Hackathons, virtual IT labs, and bootcamps
Hackathons and bootcamps can gamify learning and skill assessments to boost innovation and problem-solving. Similar physical limitations can apply to on-site events, and they can be costly to scale and host on a regular basis.
Virtual IT labs and, to an extent, simulations, are a virtual way of providing hands-on training to anyone, no matter their location. This makes them very accessible, which is critical for learners with other commitments or geographical restrictions. Virtual IT labs go a step further than simulations in that they can provide step-by-step guidance to build confidence and proficiency, or they can provide a challenge and scenario that tests and validates someone's skill level. Crucially, in a lab, the environment isn't live so learners can practice and make mistakes safely, without threatening operations or data. After all, you cannot learn the steps of a waltz without stepping on a few toes!
For instance, a virtual IT lab might challenge someone to set up a data visualization dashboard in the brand colors, using a set of data found within an Excel file that is not yet in the right format. Assessing the finished output, the lab can then validate that someone has indeed used the right colors, cleansed and imported the data correctly, and used the correct style of graph for the dashboard. Virtual IT labs and simulations work best with hands-on keyboard skills such as data engineering, cybersecurity, using machinery and so on.
Mentoring, buddying, and volunteering
Mentoring and buddy programs can be an informal way of building skills, cross-functionally and at different seniority levels. Again, these can be very relationship-based, potentially prone to bias, and may be difficult to scale or track... especially in larger organizations. And that, finally, brings us to volunteering. These opportunities, often outside of your organization, can provide the real-world evidence and experience that someone can, for example, lead a project, teach and motivate others, or collaborate effectively. Volunteering can be very effective for building soft skills. However, volunteering outside of the organization is difficult to track and highly dependent on self-reporting.
Evolving skills require a new approach
Whatever your approach, ensuring that there is real-world proof of what your people can do, from your users and customers to your employees, is vital in providing an inclusive, equitable culture where everyone can achieve their full potential.
And it is critical at a time when AI is evolving skills from basic and knowledge-driven to orchestrating and outcome-focused. To take the spotlight in the AI-era, everyone in the future will need tangible proof of what they can do and what they have done.