We didn’t want International Women’s Day (IWD) to be a last-minute, “quick, grab the females for a social media pic and shove it on LinkedIn with relevant hashtags” type affair. We wanted it to have purpose and meaning, live on, and grow past this one day. No tokenism.
And as a startup that literally has to build everything from scratch (something I’m sure many of you can relate to), we see IWD as a catalyst for creating a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programme. Authentically learning as we go.
So, a coalition across Weavr brainstormed a gazillion brilliantly creative ideas, which ended up being a heartwarming, reflective process (think warm fuzzy feels) and landed on these two programmes:
- ‘Sharing Stores’: celebrating examples of women embracing equity by sharing stories, images, fragments of real-life experiences, and meaningful quotes.
There’s a digital collage board where Weavrs are welcome to share their stories. We envisage this gaining further traction over time and including it as part of a more personal way to on board new people to the company.
- Mentorship: finding ways for women to help other women through mentorship programmes.
Statistics quoted by Deloitte revealed that just 30% of the fintech workforce is female – and what better way to build each other up than by finding and building mentorship programmes for our team.
Both launched today.
Initial comms to get everyone excited were shared last week and there was chatter and emojis-a-plenty in the “weavr-all” slack channel.
Earlier today, International Women’s Day, we brought #EmbraceEquity to life in a company-wide meeting, sharing stories in a fireside chat style. These personal stories, although just a few minutes long each, evoked an air of trusting vulnerability.
Today was a chance to deeply reflect and embrace how equity impacts ourselves and each other in a safe space that was far more moving than any of us could have anticipated. It offered space for everyone to reflect not only on the stories shared but also recognise that we don’t all start from the same place in life.
It’s the first time as a young company Weavr has done anything like this
and because it has grown from an authentic, caring, passionate place – not corporate BS tickbox tosh – people are invested and want to make a real positive change. It means something to people. And has created a real buzz of enthusiasm among us Weavrs.
Laura’s story of #EmbraceEquity was particularly poignant and she’s given us permission to share it here (thank you Laura).
How are you honouring International Women’s Day?
We hope this inspires you to give a moment or two from your day to reflect. But also, lets us look forward to how we can all implement incremental changes and learnings in our professional and personal lives to create a more inclusive, empowered ecosystem.
Do you want to get involved? We’d love to hear from you, especially if you’re interested in sharing ideas or perhaps you’d like to contribute to our mentorship programme? Please get in touch here [email protected].
