WISH North West - Gender Diversity: The Challenges of Attracting and Retaining a Diverse Workforce

WISH North West hosted their first event of the 2019 – ‘Gender Diversity: The Challenges of Attracting and Retaining a Diverse Workforce.’ The event took place at Grant Thornton’s office in Central Manchester, which was hired out in goodwill for the event.

Joanna Wilson from the University of Manchester, Debbie Sizer from Seddon’s and Kate Venables from Brabner’s shared their unique insights and experience of how to break down barriers and ensure recruitment processes are fair and equal.

A lively panel discussion explored the different challenges faced across the sector, initiatives that have worked well and some really positive outcomes.

Key strategies included improving workplace flexibility for both women and men, transparent pay and reward structures and diversity task forces. The importance of positive role models cannot be underestimated.

A clear message from the morning was that to break down barriers we need to change organisational culture through strong leadership and making equality and diversity a key priority.

Our next WISH North West event will be held on 24 September 2019 in Liverpool where we will be exploring the digital agenda and what it means for Housing with confirmed speakers from Halton Housing and ROCC. We look forward to seeing you there.