#FairnessFirst: Pledging for workplace transformation and productivity

© Dmytro Zinkevych via 123RF

Corinium’s Women in Digital and Data conference was held at the Forum venue at Embassy Hill, Constantia on 21 November.

Chantelle Bowyer, CEO of Metis Online Marketing, was MC for the day and shared that she had looked up the day’s attendees online, and was thrilled to be speaking to a room of such experience.

She encouraged networking on the day, as she shared that the success of her own business is based on forming the right relationships.

Working for better work-life balance

In her own company, Bowyer strives to prove that you can have work and life in the right balance, based on today’s most precious resource: time. Have you noticed the shift? Instead of saying, “I don’t have enough money,” people today say, “I don’t have enough time.”

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As a result, mom-of-three Bowyer encourages remote working and flexible hours, while finding ways to turn Sunday from the day most of us waste as we spend it dreading Monday, into one where we look forward to Monday as a fun day to catch up with colleagues in the office. She’s going so far as to implement the four-day work week from next year.

Fast Company explains the results of an eight-week four-day work week trial in New Zealand as follows:

Workers’ sense of work-life balance went from 54% to 78%. Stress went down. And the missed hours didn’t affect job performance, which actually slightly improved.

Bowyer also introduced Hannelie Gilmour, technology and transformation leader at PwC SA, who shared the company’s pledges aimed at increasing gender diversity, as it’s no secret that women are under-represented in the global technology workforce.

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It’s about adding your personal pledge to support others in the workplace and recognise the contributions of men and women equally.

Amongst the self-affirming PwC pledges were the following:

• If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room
• Teach children from a young age that they are equal
• The world is so disrupted by tech, we need to start to think differently
• If a self-defeating thought enters your mind, talk it down
• Uplift as you rise and pay it forward
• We are tough on ourselves and it’s a tough industry. Acknowledge when someone puts in the effort

All this was only the introduction to the day, with each of the keynote speakers doing their bit to empower attendees. Bowyer said the aim is to double the number of attendees at Corinium’s Women in Digital and Data conference in the next few years – with such an impressive start, I’m sure it will be done.

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Watch for more coverage of the Corinium Women in Digital and Data conference in my #FairnessFirst columns over the rest of the year.