5 Ways to Accelerate Gender Parity in Your Workplace

Elizabeth is a freelance writer and project manager living and working in London. She runs The Otobos Group, a project communications consultancy specializing in project management.

  Career Development   Leadership   Organizational Culture  

At the current pace of change for gender parity, we’ll be waiting 134 years for women to be on an equal footing for economic participation and opportunity, according to the Global Gender Gap Index. The rate of change is so slow that I can see why the theme for International Women’s Day in 2025 is “Accelerate Action.”

As project leaders, we’re well placed to influence—perhaps more so than you might think. Here are five things you can do to help accelerate gender parity within your workplace.

1. Show leadership
Project management is a leadership role, even if you don’t have staff working directly for you. You can influence performance reviews by providing feedback on a team member’s participation in their project work. Make sure you are celebrating success equally amongst the team.

For example, the QAs or testers often have a behind-the-scenes role, and you might not directly have a lot to do with that team as a project manager, especially if there is a test manager or Scrum master managing the day-to-day activity. But if you didn’t have a test team, your project would be in trouble! Look for areas of under-representation in your “thank you’s” and share them out equally.

Call out bias and harassment when you see it. Check in with your colleagues when world events feel overwhelming. Be braver and …

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