This article was drafted by Outwrite’s senior account executive Alexia Jones.
Gone are the days where posting about a female employee with a trending hashtag is enough to reflect an organisation’s commitments to equality, and rightly so.
There seems to be a level of disappointment surrounding this year’s #IWD2024 theme ‘Inspiring inclusion’, being seen as too broad of a message, compared to the UN’s more refined ‘Invest in women – accelerate progress’.
With more nuanced understandings surrounding gender disparities, communications professionals need to equip brands to provide impactful insight surrounding these topics, which link back to their everyday actions.
PR therefore plays a critical role in harnessing the power of storytelling to convey important messages and sharing them out clearly and transparently.
Like with any good campaign, outputs must be linked to a clear objective. A singular post with a generic message will not only get lost amongst the noise but will convey a weak commitment to the cause.
Similarly, only using awareness days and annual themes to promote social issues doesn’t show stakeholders you authentically care about them, but are more concerned with appearing to be doing good, drawing parallels with greenwashing.
Rather than a last-minute social media post, ensure you are feeding these messages out all year round to keep conversations going, creating a sustained effort which is linked to your wider goals.
Not only does it mean you are embedding equality into your overall key messages, but if you are creating this content all year around, it will also make it easier to amplify these stories on awareness days.
Therefore, set clear objectives to inform your strategy for IWD and beyond, which includes having a good understanding of who is represented in your organisation, and how this reflects your approach to gender diversity.
For example, more than half of the UK public relations industry is made up of female professionals (60%), but representation at director-level positions is significantly lower (46%), (PR Population Report, 2024).
It may seem like a positive message to say your business is at a 50/50 split, but the story changes if your female employees aren’t progressing to the same levels as their male counterparts.
This then extends to those who face multiple barriers in the workplace such as racial discrimination, and ablism. Are you only representing white able-bodied women in senior positions to showcase gender equality?
Instead, use IWD as an opportunity to tell your brand’s story from a range of perspectives, and promote the initiatives your company takes to actively combatting barriers for fair opportunities e.g. training, innovative policies, and research to identify gaps.
As a starting point, be transparent about where you are currently at, and how you aim to do better, using employee stories to ensure it accurately reflects your organisation’s culture, and avoids tokenism.
Understand why you are choosing to speak out on IWD, and if this links back to an authentic commitment to making an impact.
Overall, it should be seen is a good opportunity to round-up what you’ve been doing all year, and potentially bringing attention to important initiatives and resources available to promote equality.
Rather than staying silent, use it as a chance to mark your progress, empower those who are doing good, and ultimately invest time to reflect on how your brand can best contribute to making a positive difference.