There’s a lot to celebrate on International Women’s Day, and it’s uplifting to hear so many positive stories shared across social media today. We applaud the inspirational women and men supporting change in their workplaces and feel privileged to work with leaders genuinely committed to making a diversity difference day-in, day-out.

But we’re also mindful of the progress yet to be made. Here’s ten tips we often share to help organisations ‘be bold for change’ and achieve gender diversity progress.

We encourage you to share them in your organisation as a contribution to IWD.

1. Communicate the value of gender equity to the organisation as part of a commitment to an inclusive work environment that supports diversity

2. Feature profiles of men and women in non-traditional roles, and men and women utilising flexible work practices

3. Include an explicit diversity commitment in job advertisements (and feature diverse teams in external profiles of the organisation)

4. Request that shortlists for management roles include at least one woman (and extend the recruitment search process if not achieved in the first instance)

5. Ask ‘if not/why not’ in selection decisions to achieve gender-balance across all leadership levels and monitor the pipeline for women leaders

6. Train all leaders to recognise unconscious gender bias and to promote inclusive leadership behaviours

7. Set targets to achieve gender equity

8. Encourage participation of high-potential women in internal and industry-wide leadership programs 

9. Provide reverse-mentoring and sponsorship programs for women

10. Develop a diversity dashboard (showing agreed metrics) that’s monitored by the CEO.

These tips (and many others) are part of our research contribution to a milestone report on inclusion and diversity in the urban water sector, launched today as part of IWD celebrations.

We always love hearing your feedback – join us on twitter (@DiversityLinks)and share how you’re making a #diversitydifference in your organisation.