Gender
Diversity
Playbook

Let’s create diverse companies

This Playbook has been created to empower founders and senior leaders in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) industries to take action to build more diverse organizations.

We have turned academic research, industry reports and consultations with human resource experts and CEOs into a playbook of 12 actionable steps that leaders can implement to build more diverse and inclusive companies.

Our motivations were simple. First, we believe creating diverse and inclusive companies is the right thing to do. Second, we need more people in STEM industries so we can continue to grow and innovate.

Why does gender diversity matter?

Diversity and inclusion are important both socially and corporately. Diverse companies have been shown to perform better financially, creatively and innovatively (MaRS, 2018), and use greater thinking and decision making practices (Phillips, Kim-Jun & Shim, 2011).

Working in the startup, technology, and health science sectors we see firsthand that these industries are lacking diversity and are traditionally underrepresented by women. Women make up only 23% of Canadian technology workers (Hango, 2013).

Things worth noting

We chose to focus on Gender Diversity specifically as it involves a holistic approach where ethnicity, race, age, culture, physical ability and many different layers of diversity are encompassed. Many of the steps outlined in this playbook can affect change in other layers of diversity beyond gender. We believe this is an important step towards creating more overall equity in the STEM sector.

Although this Playbook was designed for the STEM sector, it can be applied across other industries and we encourage leaders to introduce it into their organization.

This document is not intended to be perfect. It’s a starting place for action and further collaboration. It should be viewed as an evolving document that we will update at least once annually to incorporate new findings and best practices.

Would you like to collaborate and share new research? We’d love to hear from you, please contact:murphy.sarahanne@gmail.com

Thank you,

– Sarah Murphy, Chris Gardner & Maddie Coombes