Earlier this year, my colleagues Varun and Devika shared how Accion Advisory’s sex-disaggregated data toolkit helped our partner, Fidelity Bank, to better serve more women in Ghana. Building on insights from the second dimension of the sex-disaggregated data toolkit on workplace policies and practices, we believe organizations must focus not only on the end customer but also inward, acknowledging the leadership and organizational structures that must be in place to empower women. Organizations that intentionally empower women are better positioned to create products for everyone due to their enhanced ability to identify, understand, and serve a broader, more diverse customer base.
Why empowering women in the workplace matters
When organizations make deliberate, strategic commitments to women’s empowerment, the benefits are realized throughout the business. Gender intentionality isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a foundational approach that embeds women’s empowerment into core values, leadership, and daily operations. When we introduced Accion Advisory’s women’s intentionality assessment (WIA), we highlighted that organizations that prioritize gender inclusion foster innovation, attract top talent, and build stronger brands. This executive briefing from the IFC presents a business case for gender-smart solutions, illustrating how inclusive teams avoid product blind spots and reach broader markets.
Redefining women’s empowerment in the workplace and moving commitment to action
Accion and Fidelity Bank share a common goal: to enhance the visibility and empowerment of women. Along with implementing the sex-disaggregated data toolkit, Fidelity Bank also completed the women’s intentionality assessment to identify gaps and advance toward becoming a truly transformative organization for women. Based on the assessment results, Fidelity Bank prioritized three key areas:
- Empowering women in their career aspirations
- Embedding women’s inclusion and empowerment into Fidelity’s core values
- Increasing representation of women across departments and leadership levels
Fidelity Bank has already taken significant steps toward these goals. The organization delivered gender-sensitivity training to its leadership team and departments, and integrated diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into its leadership competencies. These actions have had a profound impact, signaling that building a culture that empowers women is not only the right thing to do but essential for Fidelity Bank to achieve its vision for the future.
“Partnering with Accion brought clarity and structure to our DEI efforts,” said Selom Cofie Atta, Director, Special Projects, and Culture Transformation Lead at Fidelity Bank. “By integrating gender inclusion and DEI principles into our leadership competencies and designing solutions for women, we are taking meaningful steps toward a more inclusive Fidelity Bank.”
Building an organizational structure that empowers women
As Fidelity works toward its three key objectives, the initiatives being implemented are designed to deliver transformative impact — regardless of geography or industry.
After conducting our women’s intentionality assessment with more than 30 organizations worldwide, we’ve learned that certain universal actions help build organizational cultures that empower women across sectors.
- Align on the difference between equality and equity, and commitment to both: The leadership team is aligned in its commitment to both equality and equity, including fairness through uniformity and equity and fairness through justice and inclusion. This means providing every employee with the same resources and opportunities, while also offering tailored support to ensure that all individuals, regardless of gender, can achieve comparable outcomes. By prioritizing both equality and equity, the organization actively addresses systemic barriers and ensures that benefits, performance management, development programs, policies, and everyday practices reflect the diverse starting points and needs of its workforce. As a result, everyone has a fair chance to succeed.
- Build a diverse leadership team with equal representation: Ensure women are equally represented in senior leadership and decision-making roles. This includes setting targets for gender balance, actively recruiting and promoting women for mid-level and senior roles, and creating pathways for diverse talent to advance.
- Incorporate friction points in the performance evaluation process: Introduce space for reflection within the performance management and promotion process. When making a decision, require managers to pause and critically assess the rationale for the choice. For example, review objective performance data, consider unconscious bias, and evaluate whether all employees being considered have had equal access to development opportunities.
- Ensure workplace policies and practices are inclusive: Create an inclusive workplace by reviewing policies that shape the employee experience, including recruitment, promotions, pay, parental leave, flexible work, and antiharassment policies. For example, review job descriptions to ensure inclusive verbiage usage, use diverse hiring panels, and conduct annual pay equity audits. Offer equal parental leave for all caregivers and make flexible work standard, where possible. Strengthen anti-harassment measures with annual training and multiple reporting channels. In addition, organizations should take the extra step of providing gender sensitivity training and establishing accountability mechanisms to monitor progress.
- Require equal representation for all product-focused decision-making: When women are empowered within an organization, they are uniquely positioned to inspire and support others, bringing diverse perspectives that fuel creativity and lead to more inclusive, customer-centric products. By structuring policies and practices that actively support women, organizations create an environment where women can lead confidently and drive innovation that benefits everyone. To maximize this impact, require equal representation of women and men on all teams responsible for product design, development, and marketing. This will ensure diverse perspectives are actively included in decision-making, prevent blind spots, and lead to products that better meet the needs of all customers.
Data disaggregation and gender intentionality are foundational for understanding and serving women customers, as well as driving organizational success. Organizations that embrace these principles are not only more equitable but also more competitive in their search for top talent, in their ability to create innovative products, and in their resilience through challenging times. Empowering women within organizations is not just the right thing to do; it is a strategic imperative. By adopting intentional, data-driven gender strategies, organizations can unlock innovation, better serve their customers, and achieve lasting success. The journey requires commitment, accountability, and continuous learning, but the rewards for women, organizations, and growing economies are profound.
Want to learn more? Reach out to Accion Advisory to explore how we can support your efforts to increase your impact on women’s financial inclusion.
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