Gender diversity issues across international workforces are certainly not a new phenomenon, but the business case for getting DE&I right is stronger than ever. Most businesses around the globe are now fully aware of the importance of tackling these issues head-on, recognising the value that having a more diverse workforce has on ensuring the best business outcomes.
Especially in the wake of the pandemic, attracting and retaining the best talent has become the new imperative, and to do this requires a sustained and committed effort to embracing the talent diversity that drives innovation, improves performance, and develops key competitive advantages.
As expectations amongst employees, businesses and stakeholders continue to grow, gender equality in the workplace has become a social and business obligation.
2023 has been a year of continued growth for our female talent on the Talmix platform. The number of female registrations, applications and project success rates have all risen over the last twelve months across all geographies.
Women are now making up more of the Talmix talent network than ever before, and we are seeing particularly important increases in our talent networks across Asia and the Middle East. In the US, female talent now accounts for 31% of the Talent Network at Talmix – up from 18% in 2019. We have seen similar percentage increases across geographies, evident by the consistency shown in gender splits across key network regions. In 2017, female talent accounted for 7% of the ME network - it now sits at 27%.
Concurrently, female applications on the marketplace are also on the rise – rising by a staggering 38% in Europe alone over the last twelve months. All of this points to an increased use of talent marketplaces like Talmix to find work – a great attraction lies in the focus on skills as the key currency of the Talmix marketplace, helping to remove the unconscious biases that often prevent women from taking on new opportunities.
This is certainly something we noticed when we conducted our 2022 survey amongst our global talent network - 51% of women surveyed felt that talent marketplaces offered a level playing field for women when compared to traditional routes of securing work, and 44% of that group felt they could advocate for themselves better via a talent marketplace.
For one member of the Talmix network, "Talmix ensures pay disparity isn't evident and equal opportunity is given solely based on skills and talent".
To support this, our data reveals that the top ten earners at Talmix in 2023 show a straight 50-50 male/female split. The number of female top earners (+ £200k) on the Talmix platform has also increased 40% over the last 24 months.
Overall, the percentage of female hires on the Talmix Marketplace has risen exponentially in the last 5 years, and is projected to grow even further by 2024 - in the same five year period, the percentage of female hires into "leadership" positions has also increased by 60%.
According to our data, women are hired at a greater rate, and receive a higher day hire rate than men across a number of key roles and sectors. There has also been an upsurge in the number of women gaining leadership roles across industries.
Most notably, the healthcare industry has hired 60% more women than men through the Talmix platform in the last 24 months, despite females only accounting for 26% of all project applications. The technology industry has also made huge strides in hiring women across all roles, a 16% rise over the last twelve months. Procurement and Strategy Consulting have seen a 13% and 12% rise respectively.
There is of course, always more work to be done. For example, female hiring rates have grown over last twelve months across Private Equity and Financial Services, but still remain at a lower level than other industries.
The aim over the next twelve months will be to oversee a continued rise in the number of female hires within these industries, - but we take pride in seeing seeing positive signs within the data to indicate a meaningful narrowing of the gender gap across all geographies, and major growth for female business talent across registrations, applications and project successes on the Talmix platform – we feel fortunate at Talmix to be in a position to help propel change, directly affect balance within the industries and organizations that we support, and create more gender-inclusive workforces.
