International Women’s Day 2025: How To 'Accelerate Action'—And Fairly

"For many organizations, programmatic interventions are appealing because they are discrete," explains Siri Chilazi, a senior researcher at the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School. "They're off to the side. It's easy to approve a one-time budget for a facilitator to come and do a training or participate in a single event."

This approach, while convenient, fails to address the fundamental systems that perpetuate inequality. The data shows that needle movement has been minimal despite decades of DEI initiatives, points out Chilazi. Even more concerning, popular practices like diversity training—which companies continue to invest heavily in—have shown limited effectiveness in scientific studies dating back 50 years.

Chilazi argues for a radical shift in perspective: "We need to treat fairness exactly the same way we treat our core business." This means approaching gender equality with the same strategic thinking and persistence that companies apply to market growth or product development.

"If you're a company and you wanted to acquire another business and your merger was blocked by regulators, you're not going just to pack up and go home," Chilazi notes. "You have some fundamental vision about how you're going to grow market share, develop new products, and become a leader in your sector. So you're just going to find a different way to do it."

This resilient, strategic approach to fairness represents a significant departure from treating DEI as a peripheral concern. It recognizes that gender equity isn't just a social good but a business imperative that deserves the full force of organizational resources and ingenuity.
Redesigning systems for significant impact

The power of Bohnet and Chilazi's approach lies in targeting everyday workplace processes that inadvertently perpetuate bias. These system redesigns often involve surprisingly simple changes that yield outsized results.

Consider the traditional résumé format. A UK-based study by BIT involving over 9,000 companies found that simply expressing work experience in years rather than specific dates (for example, "management consultant, three years" instead of "2020-2023") resulted in a 15% increase in callback rates for candidates with career gaps. This small design change benefited both men and women across all experience levels by focusing hiring managers on relevant skills rather than employment continuity.

Similarly, promotion systems reveal hidden biases in their very structure. Most companies use "opt-in" promotion processes where employees must self-nominate or be recommended by a manager. This inadvertently selects for self-promotion and aggressive self-advocacy—traits that women are often penalized for displaying.

"When men say, 'Me, me, me, promote me,' everyone's like, 'Ah, great, here's a future leader,'" Chilazi explains. "And when women do that, it's, 'Oh, she's so aggressive, she's not a team player. Look at her being selfish.'"

A simple yet effective redesign is implementing an "opt-out" promotion system, where all employees at a certain tenure point are automatically considered for advancement unless they choose to withdraw. Research shows this approach increases diversity in leadership while improving overall talent selection—a win-win for organizations and employees alike.

Rachael Gibson, Principal (Partner), Chief Inclusion and Impact Officer, Crowe US, states that community building is essential for accelerating progress. "The fundamental way to inspire inclusion is to ensure that women are not just seated at tables but that our voices are heard and our ideas are leveraged," she explains.

This sentiment aligns perfectly with Chilazi's findings on the importance of inclusive meeting practices. She cites a study from Novartis that tested various prompts for managers during one-on-one meetings with direct reports. The most successful approach in increasing psychological safety was simple: instructing managers to speak less, listen more, and cede control of the meeting to the employee.

Another study cited by Chilazi found that gender-diverse teams outperformed homogeneous groups across various tasks thanks to "collective intelligence"—the ability to harness everyone's contributions through more equal turn-taking and balanced participation.
These findings reinforce a central thesis of Make Work Fair: sometimes, the most effective interventions are the simplest. Rather than creating new programs or initiatives, organizations can achieve significant progress by subtly redesigning existing processes to promote greater equity and inclusion.