Summary
Agency: Linstock Communications
The Challenge
Right Management specialises in providing organisations with advice on talent management and leadership development. The challenge for Linstock was to create a thought leadership platform on women in leadership to enable Right Management’s consultants to sell the organisation’s products and services around gender diversity of leadership teams. Linstock needed to ensure that the content platform was new and relevant, but also had a long shelf-life so that it could be applied by the business development and sales teams long after the initial launch.
The Solution
Given the wealth of content already available on women in business, and Right Management’s previous research on female involvement in start-ups, Linstock established a thought leadership platform focused on what companies could learn from the success of women running their own businesses. Right Management was keen to understand and codify the experiences and exposures that really triggered change and enabled women to progress in the start-up sector but not in established businesses.
We reviewed industry and academic literature to understand the current theory and practice around women in business. We conducted qualitative interviews with female business owners and women holding senior positions in established businesses to explore the main barriers to progression and the pivotal moments in their careers. Finally, we analysed Right Management’s extensive quantitative data on the issue of women in leadership.
Based on the research findings we drafted a report providing an in-depth exploration of the influences on female progression, and the aspects that most appealed to them about working and leading in the small business sector. Central to the report was a blueprint for progress, highlighting the key areas that organisations needed to focus on when designing leadership development initiatives that better accommodate women.
The Results
The report was launched at an event attended by more than 160 business representatives from across Right Management’s target sectors, and another 110 have been engaged through follow-up roadshow events. Right Management was subsequently asked to speak at a key Women in Leadership Event run by the Institute of Directors, where a further 150 delegates heard first-hand about the research findings and recommendations.
Right Management saw 472 social interactions during the launch event, 21x the normal rate, and has seen 248 social shares of the report content on its Careers Hub. The report also generated coverage in national and trade publications including the Evening Standard, Real Business and HR Review.
Most importantly, an additional 84 business development meetings specifically driven by the women in leadership report were confirmed in the eight weeks after the research was launched.