Yearly, I get along with buddies after marching on Worldwide Girls’s Day (IWD), and I hear the identical outrageous tales about what their employers did for March 8. Yr after yr.

One recollects receiving a voucher for a pedicure. One other describes getting a present bag with make-up, together with basis (not in a shade that’s even near matching her pores and skin colour as one of many few black girls at her office). Yet one more shares concerning the time she noticed her headshot, which appears to have been taken from her Linkedin profile, circulating on the corporate’s social media account with a quote connected to it — with out ever having given her consent.

As a person, that makes me mad. As a gender equality skilled, much more so.

Why are we, within the twenty first century, celebrating girls by perpetuating the identical stereotypes over and over? Why aren’t most of the firms with high-level commitments to gender equality in place not following their phrases with significant motion?

This yr, I need to play my half in making it as straightforward as doable for firms to do higher. That’s why, on the U.N. International Compact, a number of of my colleagues and I’ve teamed as much as create a digital workshop sequence: “Countdown to Worldwide Girls’s Day.” Registration is free and open to anybody that wishes to realize inspiration for significant motion, messaging and instruments to leverage at the least on March 8, and ideally each single different day of the yr.

Past shallow or stereotypical items, right here’s a fast to-do record of kinds of actions to keep away from:

1. Giving public visibility to girls with out consent. It’s nice that you just need to highlight girls’s efforts throughout the firm in your channels, however be sure they’ve significant methods to supply suggestions and approve any materials beforehand. Do not forget that your workers’ social media profiles are personal (together with Linkedin!). Don’t tag anybody with out ensuring they’re OK with it first.
2. Including to girls’s plates. So usually on IWD girls get requested to do further work — at no cost. Whether or not it’s your personal workers — asking them to place collectively an occasion or speak with out taking off different issues from their workload. Or an exterior professional or activist that will get invited for a presentation — however for “publicity” solely with none compensation for his or her efforts.
3. Placing girls in a field. Assuming everybody has had the identical lived experiences merely for being a girl, with out making an allowance for the numerous identities that intersect based mostly on their sexual orientation, incapacity standing, age, faith, race or ethnicity. No matter you do on IWD, be sure you should not excluding sure teams of ladies out of your efforts.
4. Sharing empty messages with out KPIs. This one ought to go with out saying, however yearly slogans flow into throughout social media —– merely repeating the yr’s IWD theme with none context or starting from “We have a good time our feminine workforce” to “Girls are so proficient.” You may be known as out. As an alternative, inform us your motion plans, targets or key performan indicators that paint an image of what your organization is definitely planning on doing to shut its gender gaps.  
5. Focusing in your HQ solely. For those who kind “work” or “office” into Google pictures it’s a really, very lengthy scroll till you discover a image that’s not an workplace setting with folks in fits typing away or pointing at charts in fancy assembly rooms. Nevertheless, the fact is that workplaces are much more various than Google may need us suppose. There are feminine workers on manufacturing facility flooring, development websites, farms, within the lab, behind the wheel or on cargo ships. Be certain that your IWD efforts profit girls throughout your operations.

On the flipside, what do you have to do?

1. Report again on what you dedicated to final yr. Final IWD, did you make a public dedication resembling to the Girls’s Empowerment Rules, be part of a brand new initiative resembling Goal Gender Equality or set your self a brand new goal? Inform us the way it’s going, share your learnings and pitfalls.
2. Examine in together with your comms and social media staff. To not solely create a submit for March 8, however to make sure gender equality is a continuing communication theme all through the complete yr, with common consciousness elevating on social media and pillar throughout speaking factors at talking engagements.
3. Leverage males as allies. With out making males “champions” or poster youngsters for gender equality, spend money on their significant engagement to unpack frequent stereotypes and collectively drive conduct change. A great deal of toolkits exist for this resembling these by Equimundo, MÄN and HeForShe.
4. Ask girls what they need. Make certain this doesn’t put further burden on them (see level 2 of the earlier record), however hold it as a easy survey, for instance. Present suggestions to clarify that the enter was heard, and construct it into your year-long motion plan. This would possibly entail rising coaching budgets or investing in mentorship or girls’s networks. The latter will aid you achieve fixed perception into precedence areas and hold the dialog going all yr lengthy. Nevertheless, be sure such programs have significant finances allotted to them, and conferences can happen in work hours while not having further volunteering from anybody concerned. And if each lady tells you they need a voucher for a pedicure, then positive, go for it.
5. Purchase from women-owned companies. This is applicable to purchases on Worldwide Girls’s Day however ideally is made a precedence for the procurement staff all yr spherical — guaranteeing you could have a transparent image of procurement spent with women-owned or women-led companies and a KPI to extend it.

Many extra actions and key messaging are summarized on this one-pager obtainable in a number of languages.

And lastly, the session of the IWD Countdown Collection I’m most enthusiastic about is the ultimate one on learn how to communicate out and arise for gender equality on the office. Merely put, learn how to turn into an activist in your sphere of affect if gender equality, variety and inclusion may not be a part of your work plan or in case your management staff is just not but on board. I hope to see lots of you there.

So inform me, this Worldwide Girls’s Day, how are you going to make sure your messaging and actions truly transfer the needle for gender equality?