Angelee Brown of franchise development support service FranOvation shares insight into how diversity and inclusion starts at the top.

By Angelee Brown, Founder and CEO, FranOvation

Since most leadership roles are still held by men in Canada, with only six per cent of CEO titles awarded to women, there is an urgent need to support women and create an inclusive and comfortable environment for them.

Leading women is a rewarding opportunity to provide guidance and mentorship. Unfortunately, women in leadership roles are harassed sexually in the workplace more so than other women. According to a study conducted by the Swedish Institute for Social Research, women with supervisory positions experienced between 30 and 100 per cent more sexual harassment than other women employees.

Without strong mentors in my world (both male and female) such as Albert Saltarelli, (Senior HR Director, Starbucks Canada and my former boss at Tim Hortons), I would not have had the courage to grow and flourish as a leader.

Below are ideas to create a female-friendly environment.

1. Create a social networking policy and guidelines for managers
   Ensure your managers are hosting safe team-building events and including a variety of inclusive events. HR or leadership can include examples or approval processes to protect your organization’s objectives and reputation.
   
2. Keep policies accessible and review quarterly
   An employee manual and policy guide should be kept handy in each department or the company’s online portal for quick reference. Quite often, companies have employees sign off on an employment contract and provide the company policy manual with the offer letter, then never address or onboard the employee properly to ensure the entire policy guide is understood.
   
3. Hold a workshop with your female staff to engage ideas and opportunities to improve
   Creating a committee or workshop to network, brainstorm, and engage your female staff can foster new ideas and inspiration for how to meet your employee’s needs better.
   
4. Have a learning library along with inspirational books for women (and men)
   If you have heard of the “take a book/leave a book” concept, having a learning library accessible in your staff room or lunchroom encourages self-improvement in a neutral way.
   
5. Include 360 assessments of your leadership team
   Top-down performance reviews often miss opportunities-senior leadership needs to be evaluated as well.
   
6. Ensure surveillance cameras are installed in public spaces including meeting spaces
   Fostering a safe space for your meetings and having cameras installed and/or open concept/glass partition meeting rooms can create a safer environment for all
   
7. Last but not least-training
   You must train your leadership team on inclusion and diversity and re-visit policies, and procedures on an annual basis. As a franchisor, this includes communicating and updating policies with your franchisees. While franchisees are independent business operators, your field staff or ops team should be coaching franchisees in current policies and procedures and also checking to ensure their inclusion and diversity policies (along with others) are current.

About the Author
Angelee Brown is Founder and CEO of FranOvation. She has led franchise development for two of the world’s largest brands, consulted for several of the largest franchisees in Canada and written policies on diversity and inclusion for companies of over 600 people. In addition to this, she has led the social committee for Tim Hortons Corporate and Randstad Canada. She is a mother of three, and facilitator along with past speaker for the Canadian Franchise Association’s Women in Franchising roundtables. For more information on FranOvation, please visit: www.franovation.com.