The Importance of Gender Balance Committees to Promote Gender Diversity
Authors: Lakahal S. , Issa R. 
Published: October 2023

Introduction

Gender balance and diversity are topics that most people can spend countless hours discussing. But how can an organization structure and derive impact and value from these discussions? At SLB we created Gender Balance committees and found that with structure and follow through, we were able to create a wave of positive change across MENA. The focus of our Gender Balance committees is actions not words. This is complimented by the mission, which is to create visible and meaning gender balance improvements using a data driven and business led approach with concentrated actions that are measured and reported.

Methods, Procedures, Process

Each location in MENA has unique characteristics, opportunities, and challenges when it comes to gender balance. This was an essential driver of the decision to not only have a MENA Gender Balance Committee, but to replicate this committee in the locations across the region. With that, SLB currently has a MENA Gender Balance Committee as well as 9 other complimentary committees in our locations. The committees work in alignment with each other and the MENA committee. The MENA committee creates the focus areas and recommended actions. The purpose of key actions is to have all locations as well as MENA, working in unison which will result in a larger impact. However, noting back to the differences between locations mentioned above, we have provided recommended actions to inspire action vs. discussion. If a location committee doesn't believe a recommended action makes sense for its location, they have the ability to replace it with an action that will. For the committees to work well there needs to be both aligned actions and location specific actions.

Continuing with the notion of actions not words, at the start of each year, the MENA committee not only creates the focus areas for the year but also creates one-pagers for each initiative. The key purpose of the one-pagers is to support the MENA and location committees in jumping into action as opposed to spending time and bandwidth on brainstorming. The one-pagers provide details on the initiatives scope, divers, timeline, implementation plan, next steps, and measures of success. Having these details in addition to the initiative also helps ensure where the company and committee members time and resources are going, will yield impact. Some initiatives will have qualitative and other quantitative measures of success, but regardless, the one-pagers help ensure we can capture the impact of our work.

To develop the actions, the MENA committee first worked to understand what the organizations priorities were with regards to gender balance and diversity. From there, we created 4 focus areas as pillars to organize our actions. The four pillars are: Why, Direction, Measuring and Advocacy. Each pillar encompasses a key goal for the MENA committee for that year, as well as the MENA and location specific actions mentioned above. With these 4 pillars we can visualize the improvements as the actions range in impact type. For example, under the Why pillar, actions center around raising awareness whereas under the Measuring pillar we track key metrics and improvements. Often times with gender balance and diversity initiatives we see the impact swing towards one end of the spectrum only, for example taking part in conferences and events. Although these initiatives are important, they won't on their own move the needle as much as is needed in many organizations. With the pillars in place, we've structured our actions to ensure we achieve a wider range of long-term, sustainable impact.

There is always room for improvement, and this is why at the start of each year, the MENA committee completes a workshop to review the actions taken over the past year. We look to understand which had the desired outcome and which did not. We want to know which individual actions once done, can be replaced and which are longer-term and need a follow up action. With this approach, we ensure we are not overloading ourselves or the location committees and are allowing appropriate time for the action or initiative to fully flourish. We work to find a balance between implementing fresh and new ideas while also maintaining momentum on other actions. Following the decision on the focus areas and actions, the MENA committee then develops a one-pager for each of the actions, new or refreshed.

Once the focus areas, actions and one-pagers are set for MENA, an interactive presentation is held with all location specific committee members. Here, the details are reviewed and discussed and feedback from the committees is received. It is important that actions are discussed and that the location committees understand what we want to action across the region. An independent action will have impact, but if the entire region works on and implementing the same action the impact to gender balance and diversity is significantly amplified.

Results, Observations, Conclusions

Gender balance and diversity are key topics in many organizations today and moving from words to actions through a structured committee approach ignites a wave of passion in individuals and across the organization. At SLB we are proud of the tremendous efforts that have been made by the MENA and location specific gender balance committees. With over 90 committee members of various background spread across the region we see commitment, passion and impact growing.