Gender equality in new hires [duplicate]

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I am managing a team of 15 individuals. The gender ratio in the team is not very good, 8:2 to be exact! All of them have almost the same skill sets.

Apparently, there are some vacancies on the team. What should I ask HR to do? Should I ask them to hire gender specific candidates or talent specific candidates? I work in Software development and I'm based in Yokohama, Japan.

The reason that I am asking this specific question because It has been observed that the minority gender group doesn't actively participate in team discussions, team building exercises and team outings. Ultimately their lack of involvement can reflect on team productivity.

manpreet 2 years ago

A very important question you need to ask is why is the minority gender group not participating? Is this because they do not feel included in the discussion? Talk to them, ask persistently and often why they aren't participating. Women not participating at the same rate is well documented - all the way from middle school to board meetings. Work on fixing the root cause, not the symptoms- root cause being an environment where minorities do not feel comfortable participating.