Women's Day: People Leaders Highlight Women Focused HR Initiatives & their Impact

Kimberlyn Lu, CEO - South East Asia, Robert Walters

Empowering Women in Leadership

At Robert Walters, our goal is to become the world’s leading talent solutions business. To achieve that, we recognise the power of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the role they play in enabling the companies and professionals we work with—as well as our own employees- to fulfill their unique potential.

One of the goals we set in the past few years was to have 50% of our senior leadership positions filled by women, which we have already successfully achieved. There were various strategies we employed to help us reach this milestone, which included having suitable role models in our leadership team whom other women could aspire to and learn from.

Role models are critical for employees because they not only talk about success but also demonstrate it in practice. They offer guidance, mentorship, and inspiration, showing that leadership opportunities are attainable and that women's contributions are highly valued within the company.

The True Impact of Women in Leadership

Putting a woman in a leadership position that she has rightfully earned is the correct thing to do—and that in itself is the success of the story, not measuring what her "impact" is.

We can often get hung up on the numbers when trying to measure the impact of initiatives, such as profit or productivity. The harder-to-measure factors are the impact on breaking down stereotypes and barriers, allowing more professionals to be "seen" and feel included in the workplace, as well as the cultural shift around behaviors and feeling more comfortable in the workplace. These are all profound changes that can have a notable impact on staff motivation and retention.