Women’s networks: ‘Girls can do anything’

A women’s network can be a powerful way to support women to achieve success in the workplace

The recent Lumina Intelligence research, commissioned by Women in Wholesale (WiW), highlighted that only 16% of females hold senior leadership roles within the wholesale sector – in comparison, around 48% is the UK average. So, what are the barriers for women to progress in senior roles?

This was answered during June’s Building a Women’s Network with Sysco WiW Breakfast Briefing, led by the foodservice wholesaler’s Jo Milner, Finance Director, and Victoria Crouch, Corporate Account Director, both active members of IMPACT, Sysco’s women’s resource group. A lack of female role models and an overly male-dominated workforce were cited as the main barriers. And while some of the drivers for change have come about from work around policies, such as menopause, training, bias behaviour, return to work, building a women’s network offers the support, inspiration and confidence for more women to pursue their career goals.

GIRLS CAN DO ANYTHING

This Scouts motto underpinned the session along with the clear message to be brave. Delving into what it is that will make the difference to get more women into senior positions and on the pathway to promotion is creating a female network within a business. While this isn’t the only route to promotion, it is a significant one.

CREATE PASSION FOR SUCCESS

How do you go about building a women’s network? From the start it’s important to be clear on what you want to achieve – is it creating a network simply for women to talk and connect, or is it looking at what’s important to women, educating others, sharing information, running events – and not to promise to ‘fix’ things. A women’s network is about bringing like-minded women together and supporting them at all levels of the business, listening, exchanging ideas and knowledge, making connections, creating leadership opportunities, influencing policies and ways of working, creating a feeling of inclusivity and belonging, and giving women an increased profile within the business.

GETTING UP AND RUNNING

Make it easy for people to join and take part – Sysco uses a QR code which adds members to an email distribution list, which also acts as a tool to keep in touch and share information. Establish how you’ll communicate and share information. It could be Teams, email, WhatsApp, Sharepoint or an intranet.

Jo and Victoria were keen to impress on attendees to be realistic about what can be achieved and not to set ambitious targets from day one as it takes time to build a network.

Listen to the support women in your business need, not just with career development but with wellbeing too. Content ideas for sessions could be a member spotlight where work experience is shared, or career sessions focused on someone new to the leadership or exec team to share their career journey and any learnings. Reach out to people within the business who could lead a session and also link in with your leadership and development team.

It’s helpful to get in touch with other businesses who have an established network and take learnings from their experience and advice and support.

Ultimately, focus on what the women in your business specifically want and then the network becomes a voice. While you can’t immediately change what may be a male-dominated environment, you can create a voice for women.

Diversity and Inclusion networking Sysco women Women in Wholesale