Suyo’s reviewed its hiring process to remove the gender biases that resulted in having employees stuck in gender-stereotypical roles: male engineers and female assistants.
Suyo offers property formalization services in Colombia at a lower cost and higher success rates than other players in the market. Formalizing one’s property results in numerous benefits, such as access to subsidies, possibility of selling or renting out parts of the land, etc.
Suyo’s CEO and co-founder, Matt Alexander, took our «gender mainstreaming workshop». In the process he realized that Suyo’s employees seemingly balanced gender split (51% women and 49% men) was hiding big biases. For example, in the administrative department women made up 75% of the employees, while in the services departments they corresponded to only 31%. Moreover, in the product department, although having a greater female representation overall, the engineers tended to be men while the assistants were mostly women.
Matt realized that something had to be done to improve Suyo’s hiring process and, among other activities, he:
- conducted an initial analysis of the status quo to identify all the gender biases in Suyo’s hiring process,
- created a diverse recruitment team and standardized his tests,
- developed workshops on unconscious bias, specifically aimed at Suyo’s HR department, and
- reviewed all existing job descriptions, focusing on using a neutral language to remove all possible biases.
Matt has ambitious objectives for this initiative. He aims to reach a 50-50 ratio of men and women at every company level and increase productivity by 30%. Moreover, he aims to reduce turnover by 20% by improving the well-being of his employees through the creation of a more diverse and inclusive environment.
If this story inspired you, follow our Gender Mainstreaming Course and learn how to create sound gender initiatives.