Celebrating Women in Recruitment: The women of Quanta

Gender gaps exist across almost all industries and all sexes, but many industries face age-old long gender stereotypes that make these gaps, at times, hard to change. Gender diversity can only do great things for teams, with one report stating that revenue is a lot higher within more diverse teams. The CEB Global (now known as Gartner) report “Gaining the Talent Advantage: The Case for Gender Diversity in Sales” stated that 62% of companies who had 45% or more women in their sales teams ranked higher-than-average for profitable revenue. At Quanta, we have an incredibly high female to male ratio, with 53% of our team being female and 47% is made up of men. How does this tie into the recruitment industry? Well as many of you know, recruitment is usually known as a ‘man’s world’ and the figures are still reflecting this with 35% of the UK plc boards being made up by women. This number might sound low, but it is a massive step forward from figures back in 2011 when around 12.5% of the recruitment market was made up of women. This puts quanta in a good position with gender equality. But just how many women in the recruitment industry are in management/positions of power and how many of them feel that they can be? The answer is low, with only 25% in management roles and it’s even lower at director level- it feels like women just aren’t getting the chance to grow within their recruitment careers. However, at Quanta we have an impressive 55% of the management positions being held by women. This puts Quanta at a great advantage and shows just how diverse the team here is.

Finding Solutions to Long Term Industry Problems

Women in recruitment face many challenges throughout their careers, coming in many different shapes and sizes. The best way forward is to focus on these issues and create proactive solutions that can make a difference. It comes as no surprise that there is a lack of female role models within the industry with only 25% ending up in management roles, reflecting the earlier point that women in recruitment don’t tend to see promotional paths or get the option to move into positions of power, signifying exactly the issue with the recruitment industry as it stands today. Quanta has managed to fight these figures and offer successful training courses allowing everyone in the company an equal chance of getting into management. Last year 47% of our employees who completed the Fast Track to Future Leadership programmes were women.
The ‘mans world’ ethos contributes massively to the significant amount of men that make up the market. Sometimes this ethos goes as far as to limit career opportunities as well as sometimes creating an overwhelming or intimidating atmosphere within the workplace.
Looking at the CEB Global report mentioned earlier, there’s an adherent lack of support for women that are intending on having a family or even taking a career break to raise their children. These career breaks are often not supported and can leave women feeling lost upon returning to an earlier career.

Focusing on the Future

The focus for the future is to create a culture that ensures all areas of the workforce are supported and have clear inclusive atmospheres. The way to create this type of workplace is to ensure everyone including women can gain traction within their roles which in turn will lead to more women being put into positions of power or managerial roles. Address the gender gap when speaking to employees to empower more women to fill roles of power. Once more women are in these positions, the ‘man’s world’ ethos can start to break down and become something of the past. Quanta take pride in their culture and make sure everyone has equal opportunities to gain rewards and on top of that, the whole team is rewarded to avoid creating segregation for ‘top billers’ or different departments. There need to be equal opportunities and on top of this, communication needs to be even across all aspects of the recruitment industry. Quanta encourages feedback, promotional fast tracks and performance reviews. Making sure feedback is consistent there are weekly and monthly reviews and on top of this a monthly set of targets. Which all, in turn, lead onto the fast track courses which allow employees to gain traction, learn and in turn be promoted!

Something many companies don’t address is the fact that people take breaks from their careers to have families and an integral part of many people’s lives. Introducing programmes that get not just women but men back into careers should be much higher up on their agendas. There aren’t many companies that advertise taking on someone that may have had a career break. Often hearing employers reject people for needing more recent experience or not wanting to invest the time into bringing these people back up to date within their industries. All the points stated in this blog should remind employers to rethink or maybe even restructure their onboarding process and address the gender gaps that are occurring in not just recruitment but all industries.

Quanta has many great values that the staff live and breathe, including being proud to be different and investing in our futures. Focusing on being proud of being different, the male to female split at Quanta is almost 50/50 and challenges most recruitment agencies with a positive 53% of the team being female and 47% of the team are male. This certainly promotes an equal and diverse workforce. Quanta makes the progression opportunities clear from the get-go, meaning there is a clear path for employees to follow along their journeys at Quanta. Quanta is fighting for women to succeed in recruitment and management.

Fancy joining our diverse team here at Quanta. Give Georgia a call for some more information on our current vacancies or look at our vacancies here.