Roadmap to Gender Equity for Flexi-Staffing Companies

Why should Flexi-staffing (FS) companies aim to improve gender diversity?

• Clients are hiring women within their organizations and have started mandating women in outsourced roles. Unless flexi-staffing companies start building their capabilities today, they will not be able to deliver on this upcoming demand
• Hiring a woman can raise FS companies’ gross margin per person on payroll by 10.3%, compared to men, due to increased revenues resulting from women’s lower attrition and longer tenures

To learn more about the measurable business benefits of hiring women for FS companies, click here >

Why do FS companies have low gender diversity today?

Flexi-staffing companies are unable to hire and retain more women because of challenges both within and outside the company. Some examples of these challenges are:

Company-level challenges

• Recruiters do not have the skills to hire women quickly
• Companies are not incentivizing recruiters to hire women
• Business development teams do not use gender as the key differentiator during a pitch
• Recruiters do not build a database of female candidates

Ecosystem-level challenges

• Clients sometimes restrict the gender diversity percentage in their hiring requirements
• Families do not allow women to work late or migrate for jobs
• Job portals have a limited pool of women
• Government policies limit companies’ ability to hire women, and sometimes make it cost-ineffective to hire women

How can FS companies become more gender diverse?

• Reward and recognize recruiters: To increase recruiter motivation, start recognizing recruiters hiring women each month and offer a gift voucher to the top recruiter every month
• Build the organization’s capability:
  • To train recruiters to source more women candidates by improving the quality and quantity of their leads click here >
  • To train recruiters to get more responses from women candidates by improving the effectiveness of their job advertisements click here >
  • To train recruiters on developing compelling pitches to convert more women candidates click here >
  • To train recruiters to minimise the number of candidate drop-offs click here >
  • To train recruiters to address unconscious gender biases in hiring click here >
• Strategically position the company: To gain market share, start publishing gender diversity credentials and pitching for exclusive diversity mandates

How can FS companies track their progress on gender diversity?

GLOW’s Gender Equity Readiness Scorecard (GERS) can enable FS companies to assess and track their progress on gender equity and prioritize areas of improvement based on three dimensions – outcomes, accountability, and capability. To know more about how FS companies and ecosystem players use GERS to advance gender diversity, click here > 

To access the detailed roadmap and best practices for improving gender equity in flexi-staffing, click here >

If you want support implementing this roadmap, email us at GLOW@fsg.org.