This International Women’s Day, we’re invited to #EmbraceEquity. As the DEI lead at Siemens GB&I, I want to share my perspective on equity and the steps we are taking as a company to address this.

A colourful drawing showing five working women of differing ethnicities and styles

Fair and Equal

Someone asked me recently whether Diversity, Equity and Inclusion were always part of who I am?

I answered without hesitation: Inclusion has been a core part of who I am since I can remember. But the reality is that Equity has been a much more recent value for me; I didn’t grasp the inherent difference between fairness and equity until much later.

Have you ever heard the phrase “I don’t see gender/race/<insert diversity demographic> when I’m recruiting. I always just recruit the best person for the job” Have you ever said it or thought it?

In my earlier career as an engineer, I would have proudly stated that I don’t see gender, race, or any other diversity demographic when I was recruiting. I wanted to be offered a role because of my skills and not my gender.

So, why is that statement wrong? What is inequity? How do we take action to counter it? And how do you approach the very real concern about discriminating against colleagues from majority backgrounds?

Seeing, and Acknowledging, that Inequity Exists

Our managers have a strong will to increase the diversity of our organisation and recognise the value that diverse groups bring to our ingenuity and better decision making but often feel uncertain as to how to achieve this, especially since most of the sectors we work within have low female representation. In many cases, our managers simply didn’t have the lived experience to see that inequity exists from under-represented groups.

To help managers, we tell the story about Imogen, a black female engineer in the middle of the career. We hear about her journey from infant school, through university and her early career until now, as she is struggling to take her next step into leadership position.

Imogen, having the intersectional identity of being both female, in a male dominated function and being black, amongst predominantly white colleagues, has experienced double the inequity. She is clearly intelligent, hard-working and has strong skills and fierce determination to succeed. Just the kind of person Siemens wants in our organisation.

“Listening to Imogen’s story made me realise that she was presented with a lot more obstacles and barriers that weren’t there for me”.
Sean Carroll, Head of Commercial Circuit Protection at Electrium

What is Equity?

Last year, we held a DEI workshop with some of our lead Champions. We ran a rather silly, but quite interesting demonstration. Aided by my kind friends Afqad, Paul and Mariah, and with the help of a stepladder and a small stepstool, I was able to demonstrate the true difference between Equity and Equality.

For reasons known only to me, our ideas board was placed at quite a height, and I invited our three volunteers to place their ideas on sticky-notes onto the board.

Through a series of trial and error, we discovered that Afqad, who is rather tall, didn’t need any support to reach the ideas board, Paul could reach with the aid of a stepstool and Mariah needed to be on the second step of the stepladder.

If I wanted to be “Fair and Equal”, I should have given them all the same support, but it simply wasn’t needed by Afqad, and if I’d given them all access to the stepstool, it still wouldn’t have been enough for Mariah; we’d have never benefitted from her excellent ideas.

This is what we mean by Equity: providing the right support to each individual so that they can all participate fully.

Taking Action for Equity

As part of the Siemens Gender Equity Program, we have made some specific commitments around our promotions into management and our hires into technical roles. These commitments are simply around ensuring that we are promoting and hiring women and men equitably.

In GB and Ireland, we’re introducing Ten Positive Actions for Equity which aim to provide managers with clear guidance on the actions they can take to ensure we meet these commitments and overcome those barriers which may be in place for women. Here are two of them:

Career Sponsorship

There are simply not the same proportion of women, or people from minority racial groups, in our leadership and management levels. This means that there are fewer role models. This matters because we all have a bias to recognise the skills and strengths in individuals who are like ourselves, an “affinity bias”, which means that typically those individuals who have a senior leader sponsoring their career are from majority groups. We’re asking our managers to identify two individuals who are from an under-represented group (gender, race, disability or other group) and to sponsor their career.

Gender Balanced shortlist for interview

We’re asking our managers to shortlist an equal gender balance for interview. Our data shows that proportionately women tend to do very well once they reach an interview. By having an aspiration to achieving an equal gender balance, we’re driving our managers to look at new ways of attracting more women to apply for our roles and to stop and question whether they’ve done enough to broaden the search, to reach the hidden talent.

Removing Inequities

Our final step in addressing inequity is to identify what barriers we have put in place which inadvertently exclude certain groups. Remember that the ideas board in our demonstration was put extremely high? Did we stop to question why it was at that height? Did it serve any benefit? If we lowered it, Mariah, Paul and Afqad could have all participated with no additional support at all.

“We need to make sure the essential criteria within our roles are not so discrete that they put off a certain demographic from applying.”
Simon Nevin, General Manager, Customers Services, Digital Industries

We are asking managers to re-evaluate the requirements of the role and analyse whether they have inadvertently put in barriers which exclude women. They will now carefully consider the skills and strengths needed to be successful in the role, eliminate the need for sector experience where possible, question whether certain qualifications or requirements are essential and review how the role could be conducted flexibly.

Three images demonstrasting Equality, Equity and Even Better. Equality image shows three people of different heights looking over a wall to watch a football match with each standing on a box. Text below states Equality: It is assumed that everyone will benefit formt he same supports. They are being treated equally. Equity image shows the same three people but this time the tallest person has no box and the shortest person has two boxes. Text below states Equity: Individuals are given different supports to make it possible for them to have equal access. They are being treated equitably. The Even Better image has the same three people but the wall has been replaced by a fence through which each can view at their own height. Text below states Even Better: Everyone has access without any supports or accommodations because the cause of the inequity was addressed. The systemic barrier has been removed.

Over To You

These are just some of the actions we’re asking our managers to take, however, these actions can be taken by any of us. The next time you are taking a decision which affects someone else’s career or provides them with an opportunity, remind yourself that it’s not enough so remember to always offer to the “best person for the job”. I ask you to take a moment to question yourself:

What obstacles has an under-represented group overcome which others don’t experience?
What positive action can I take to level the playing field for this group?
What barriers can I eliminate which makes this opportunity accessible to a much wider group of talent?

And in doing so, you will #EmbraceEquity.

Happy International Womens’ Day