Achieving gender empowerment: build nurturing cultures, instead of focusing on checklists

For a company, performative or compliance-based efforts that tick boxes for diversity reports may look good on paper, but they don’t lead to lasting change.

To build a real gender-inclusive culture, organisations need to create environments where individuals, especially women, are supported, developed and valued as whole people, not just as diversity metrics. Businesses need to do better than superficial diversity initiatives, including taking tangible actions and showing a genuine commitment to addressing the challenges of gender empowerment. 

Phillippa Geard, CEO and founder of RecruitMyMom and RecruitAGraduate, emphasises this in the recent Working Women in South Africa Report 2025. She highlights that although more women than ever before are entering and graduating from tertiary institutions, employers risk losing out on this critical talent pool if they fail to adapt their recruitment, development and retention strategies accordingly.

The report further reveals that South African women are highly ambitious, with 84% expressing a strong desire for career advancement that will take them higher than where they currently are. Despite this ambition, a number of significant obstacles remain, including limited internal growth opportunities, inadequate mentorship and networking, rigid workplace policies, pay inequality and the absence of visible female role models in senior leadership roles.

Addressing these barriers through intentional, impactful strategies is essential to making meaningful progress in creating equitable and supportive professional environments.

We need to shift the approach to empowerment from diversity targets to meaningful inclusion. We must work towards creating a workplace culture where everyone, regardless of gender, is rewarded based purely on their skills, contributions and dedication. And genuine empowerment, in my view, can be realised if organisations approach it by doing the following:

Formal mentorship programmes are useful, but the real magic happens in everyday interactions. We have to encourage open dialogue and peer support across all levels in the organisation. You want to create a space where young individuals feel confident seeking guidance and pursuing growth opportunities without fear of judgement from anyone in the organisation.

While mentorship focuses on guidance, sponsorship is about advocacy. It involves identifying promising talent, particularly from underrepresented groups, and championing them for high-profile opportunities.

At Flow Communications, this has meant leveraging our remote work business model to ensure that young women, even if they’re based in a rural area or come from a previously disadvantaged background, are given not only access to technology in the form of working laptops and provided with a contribution to their internet expenses, but also offered work opportunities that will give them visibility in key projects and equipped with the tools they need to become future leaders.

Outdated beliefs that women cannot balance personal and professional roles continue to hold back progress. We still have in our society, particularly in the world of work, instances where new mothers returning from maternity leave are quietly sidelined, their potential questioned or their responsibilities reassigned based on assumptions rather than ability. 

However, time and again, women have demonstrated that they return to work more focused and even have an elevated sense of purpose. We, as women, have consistently demonstrated that we not only handle multiple roles adeptly, we also bring empathy and fresh perspectives to leadership.

Representation matters. When women – especially women of colour – hold leadership roles, it signals what is possible. Having more women given the chance to move up the ladder and grow within the organisation can inspire others by their visibility alone. Make sure that it is common for junior employees to say, “I can see myself in that role one day,” because they see someone who looks like them already up there.

Inclusion requires understanding and investing in people, not simply filling quotas. Create platforms where employees can share their experiences, challenges and ideas without fear. Then, act on that feedback. 

Empowerment as a solution does not have a one-size-fits-all approach – it requires ongoing learning, listening and adapting. Make an effort to gradually chip away at traditional stereotypes and inspire younger generations of emerging female professionals to grow, succeed in their roles and ultimately become leaders in business.

Ultimately, to shift the focus to capability and contribution rather than gender alone, genuine empowerment requires that organisations consistently listen, do better at understanding the diverse experiences of people and ensure equal access to growth opportunities for all – and having women being offered opportunities in senior positions signals possibility and pathways to others who come after them.