Unique initiatives to celebrate International Women's Day in 2023

International Women's Day 2023: Themes and Campaigns to Support

March 8… A day to:

Celebrate the accomplishments of women
Raise awareness about women’s equality
Accelerate efforts for gender parity

We are grateful that times have changed. But we still have a lot of catching up to do. Inclusivity is important. But we haven’t reached there yet.

Only 30% of women are in senior management and executive positions compared to those holding support staff positions, i.e. 47%.
According to McKinsey, only 85 women will get promoted to manager compared to 100 men.
1 in 5 women said they were often the only woman, or one of the only women, in the room at work. This is twice as common (40%) for senior-level women and women in technical roles.
Compared to only 6% of men, 23% of women agreed they’d had their professional competency doubted due to their gender.

Quite evidently, achieving gender equality and powering women professionals is an unfinished business of our time. Without a doubt, to maintain sustainable development goals, gender equality must be at the heart of the strategy.

This is why we are joining forces with many organisations with International Women’s Day 2023 initiative to #EmbraceEquity. The Star in Me is committed to arming your employees, managers, and leaders with the tools that will allow you to push back against bias and inequity.

After all, Change is necessary to grow and evolve to be the point of attention tomorrow.

Help women professionals go beyond the biases and barriers

The Star in Me puts women at the heart of all our work. Not just because we believe it’s the right thing to do. But because it’s vital for growth and building a sustainable economy.

Get everything you need to run a successful Women’s day celebration at your organisation.

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On that note, we have compiled 8 ways that can help you make IWD 2023 exciting and fun. Let’s make the International women’s day celebration go beyond the usual.

1. Embrace Equity: Visual Messages

For diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and practices to be successful, you must facilitate inclusive work culture. But for that to happen, you need to take meaningful action. Let’s take an example here.

What do you do to remember important dates, events, or meetings? You keep notes in your cabin, set alerts on your phone, or use Notion to keep you updated. It shows your commitment to making things happen, right? Embracing equity requires that level of commitment. Your women employees understand their importance, but you must remind them what it’s like.

Here’s where visual messages come in handy. It will act like notifications and reminders of “biases and what workplace equity is all about.” Let’s not forget that your employees need to understand before making a decision in the changing business landscape.

To help you, we have designed X creatives that will power you to break down complexity into a form that everyone can decipher.

2. Bias Sensitisation: One Bias a Day

Eliminating bias is only possible if you start acknowledging it exists. That’s how you can take steps towards unbiasing your workforce. Back in 2013, Google began the same practice, spreading awareness by educating their employees and leaders. This practice allowed them to talk about unbiasing.

Research shows that awareness of unconscious bias can result in unbiased outcomes and a better understanding of the bosses and underlying reasons and causes. However, you can only accomplish some things in a single day.

To help you focus on unconscious bias, we have designed 20 creatives for each day of Women’s Month. You can minimise impacts by sharing them through internal newsletters and mailers and work towards making a diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture.

3. Embracing Equity Stories and Research: Solutions decoded

How can you spark action from the knowledge? The best way is to use stories…

Research suggests that sharing a story can create emotional connections that inspire people to think differently and more positively about complex subjects. Thus, it helps them to better prepare for whatever the future holds.

Since IWD 2023 revolves around the theme “Embrace Equity,” nothing can be better than sharing a few stories to help you identify inequities that could cost you talent. However, we didn’t stop sharing stories. You can help your decision-makers to act through action-driven caselets.

You will find stories and what you can do differently to improve equity in your workplace. We have designed 10 creatives you can share through internal newsletters and mailers and work towards making a diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture.

4. Panel Discussions: Get your leaders to talk about equity

Successful businesses like yours are already weaving DEIB into your culture. No one is shying away from having difficult conversations. But you can only challenge unbiased systems or processes if you include people directly impacted to create equal and unified communities.

It’s time to facilitate diversity conversations within the workplace. You can create space for your teams to ask and answer thought-provoking questions about diversity and equity. This activity will help you talk about diversity constructively and respectfully and in healthy ways.

The Star in Me will be conducting panel discussions, including DEI, what organisations are doing to make DEI a priority, how leadership and development training can help drive DEI strategies, and so on.

5. Info packets: Recommendations to improve equity

You must have a lot on your plate already. However, using a traditional approach to reduce unconscious bias does not work. For example, only depending on training to raise awareness and understanding regarding biases will be required to create an equitable and inclusive workplace.

We will provide answers to this question. The info packets we have created will focus on the actions you can take as an organisation, leader, and coworker to reduce the shortcomings of the traditional approach.

Armed with this approach, you can give an opportunity to your employees to be a part of decision-making where they can take steps to make your organisation “The Best Place to Work With.”

6. Collaborative Platform

Regardless of what business sector, the pandemic clearly would have altered the needs and wants of your employees. These developments have introduced new challenges, opportunities, and sometimes both. Perhaps you have had to reimagine strategies and processes to keep your employees engaged.

But let’s be honest here. With so much happening, you can’t ask your employees to read through different emails, newsletters, or websites to upskill and get aware of trends and policy changes. The best way is to get them one platform that will help them stay updated and share their challenges simultaneously.

The Star in Me provides a licence-based platform that connects employees across the organisation and enables mentoring, networking, and upskilling. Here’s what you will get:

Monthly additions: 3 Masterclasses | 3 Curated Video Resources | 4 Career Blogs

In short, it can be a customised space for your women employees to learn, share, network and grow together.

7. #EmbraceEquity Masterclasses: A step to break biases and succeed

How do you power your employees to learn and develop skills? Typically when you partner with learning and development vendors, you get access to training materials that enable your employees with overall development.

But sadly, that doesn’t help with their everyday goals. Will they always have enough time to keep up with changing trends and times? This is where Masterclasses come to the rescue.

We can assess what’s missing and provide a few topics to give deep and transformational learning experiences aligned with your DEI goals or vision in 2023.

8. Leadership programs for Women: Empower fellow women professionals

A lot of organisations wish to help their women employees. But to overcome unique organisational hurdles and biases that restrict their growth requires them to be equipped with the tools they need to increase their influence and impact.

We understand this and have been in this niche for over a decade. Our tailored programs will allow your women employees to share and draw on their leadership experiences. This program will power them to drive personal and professional change to help them aim for the top in their career trajectories.

Surely, you would have a list ready to show appreciation, but these recommendations can help you celebrate IWD in its true sense. Give your women professionals the culture they need to grow and evolve as a professional.

Their accomplishments will eventually benefit you as an organisation. Read that again!

Pro Tip:

Often we tend to target women when it comes to International Women’s Day celebrations. While it is important, you must involve women and people who identify beyond the gender binary in the conversation. This will help you become an equal advocate for gender parity.

Even as per an HBR article, when you include men in the inclusion programs and initiatives, more than 95% see progress compared to 30% of organisations where men aren’t a part of the conversation.

Make sure you invite male and non-binary teammates and leaders to start a conversation that truly is diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

What next?

Go beyond the usual Women’s Day celebrations in 2023 with our exclusive deliverables and extend the support to your teams so they can grow and prosper.