On September 25th, 2023, Henkel, HPE, and FedEx in partnership with the Women Empowerment Council (WEC) co-hosted “The Challenges of Retaining Female Employees”. Over 60 team members from five WEC companies participated at the Henkel Management Center in Shanghai and presenters from FedEx US joined online.
With strong leadership engagement, Rajat Agarwal, President of Henkel GCN, Eddie Chan, President of FedEx China, and Poh Yian Koh, China Vice President of FedEx and Michael Zhu, Global VP, Managing Director of HPE China, presented their commitment to advance gender equity and shared insights and programs to drive diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in their respective companies.
Rajat also raised the female retention challenges facing Henkel and asked participants to be candid in their thoughts on how to attract, retain and develop women.
Michael noted the three pillars of HPE’s global DEI strategy: equity, advancement and inclusion which help to continuously innovate and inspire talent through tailored career planning. By improving experience, exposure and education, HPE tries to make work fit into people’s lives.
Calling in from the East Coast of US, Nanette Malebranche, Managing Director, Ramona Oliver, Senior Manager and Shanta Stroud, Operations Manager, highlighted the importance of making sure everyone is connected and heard. They shared different perspectives on the importance and value of a formal mentor-mentee program.
Before breaking into groups to dive deeper into five areas: Retention, Attraction, Promotion, Networking, and Role Models, Diane Ho, Partner of WEC, added the China context with insights from the Healthy Women, Healthy Economics White Paper. In the study, 92% of professional women believe their career is important or very important, but they also think they need to sacrifice their career in order to balance the triple burden (work, family and self-care) .
Intentionally grouped for diversity, each group had a mix of genders, companies, departments and levels. Key insights and takeaways included: qualities associated with women, such as more open-minded, compassionate and tolerant, are currently underestimated; formal and informal mentor programs help women; networking by interest areas (sports, cooking, etc.) can expand opportunities and deepen relationships; and a focus on women-friendly benefits vs compensation can attract and retain women.
Closing with a Commitment to Change, Rajat to work with WEC to start a cross-company mentorship program; and Michael to consider formal mentor program to complement current informal approach at HPE. Poh-Yian shared a Winston Churchill quote, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often,” and encouraged everyone to take actions from the learnings from the workshop to make changes individually, for their teams and at their companies.
