The Power of Female Leadership: How TalentWorld Women are Revolutionizing the Staffing Industry.

What’s the hype with female-led organizations?

The world of business is undergoing a revolution with empathy and emotional intelligence at the forefront, and the driving force behind it is female-led businesses.

In the latest Fortune 500 ranking, women still make up less than 10% of all CEOs. Sure, this number is double what it was in 2016, but there’s no denying there is still work to do. Even in an industry like staffing, that is dominated by women (66% internal staff are women), only 26.8% of leaders identify as women. 

Yet, time and time again, we see that women-led organizations tend to have increased innovation, outperform their male-led counterparts, have higher employee engagement levels, and can bring about cultural change. So, during International Women’s Month, we will explore the advantages that come with having women at the helm of organizations, how we’ve benefited from TalentWorld being a women-led organization, and put a spotlight on some of the talented women who lead us every day. 

Increased Innovation

According to Forbes, 54.4% of women-led organizations report greater creativity, innovation, and openness, likely due to female-leaders imbedding these values into their company culture. TalentWorld’s emphasis on Candidate and Recruiter experience is a good example of this. 

We’ve all read the job seeker surveys. The feedback from candidates is consistent year after year – they feel like Recruiters don’t care; they feel like a number. As an organization that employs many Recruiters, we know this couldn’t be further from the truth. Recruiters care. They care a lot. 

It's not that Recruiters don’t care. It’s that this industry has become more about speed and automation than people. We’ve seen how technology has taken the place of humans in search of solutions to industrywide challenges. It has impacted relationships, making them transactional. That’s why we’re taking a different approach.

We believe that true care is the foundation of trustworthy relationships. But to genuinely do this, we had to solve for what job seekers really want from Recruiters. 

34% of candidates surveyed for/by Jobvite said that increasing personal conversation during an interview process would impact their recruitment experience positively. Another 47% of candidates said that it’s important to them to have great communication with their recruiters—including feedback and follow-ups.

At TalentWorld, our all-women leadership team is thoughtful about where and how we implement technology. We never want it to replace humans. For example, chat bots were a trend that we never jumped on. We would rather enhance the Recruiter experience because after focusing on creating the best Candidate experience, we recognized that what job seekers really want from Recruiters is more time. And the only way to give Recruiters time, is to remove the admin burden. 

Innovative strategies that we implemented in 2022 saved Recruiters 239 hours and are estimated to save over 700 hours this year - with more opportunities to save on the horizon. 

Soaring Performance and Customer Satisfaction

Studies have shown that companies led by women tend to outperform their male-led counterparts in terms of both financial performance and customer satisfaction ratings. In fact, according to research conducted by McKinsey & Company, women-led businesses generate up to 35% higher returns than those run by men! Additionally, these businesses have been found to be better at creating customer loyalty as they prioritize collaboration over the competition when it comes to achieving success.

For TalentWorld, we see this reflected in our long-standing relationships with clients and candidates alike. Our Client Net Promoter Score (NPS) is consistently above the industry average with our 2022 score sitting at 60. 

They are the benchmark by which I measure other service providers – NPS Survey Respondent 

And our Candidate NPS is also well above the industry average at 95, making it clear that people want to work with TalentWorld. 

Great company that cares! Working here is fabulous. They care about their employees and treat everyone with respect. – Glassdoor Reviewer

As we continue to grow from coast to coast, we will maintain our focus on the Candidate and Recruiter experience, so we never lose sight of what matters most – people.  

Building Trust and Engagement

There is evidence that suggests employee engagement levels tend to be much higher in female-run organizations due to increased trust between leaders and employees. This is because women often place greater emphasis on empathy when managing teams, which helps create a positive work environment where everyone feels valued and respected. 

In a study conducted on corporate diversity, results showed that 83% of millennials are actively engaged at work when they believe their organization fosters diversity. As such, staff retention rates tend to be significantly higher in companies managed by women compared with traditional male leadership models. 

Although TalentWorld’s all-women leadership team was not intentional – one part acquisition and one part an intentional coming together of industry leaders who wanted to do things differently – TalentWorld has shown that leading with transparency and care is what powers high performing teams.

A great leader is one who listens, leads by example, trusts their team, has a clear vision and shares it, and invests in the future the team.” – Rachida El Jastimi, Vice-President, Eastern Canada, TalentWorld

Building something different pushes you outside your comfort zone because change is hard. We know: we’ve asked a lot of our team over the last few years. But they have embraced the change with active curiosity and radical honesty, allowing us to completely change the way we attract and source candidates at TalentWorld.

We have one of the most unique Recruiter onboarding and training programs in the country, where we train Recruiters in the fundamentals of digital marketing. This allows them to spend less time finding people and more time doing what they love – getting to know people. 
 

Cultural Change

Finally – but certainly not least – it has been demonstrated that having a woman at the top can bring about significant cultural change within an organization; something which can help promote diversity initiatives from all areas of the organization. When people see people like them at the top, they strive to work harder to achieve the same success. By fostering a diverse workplace, opportunities for other underrepresented groups become apparent as well.

Being a women-led organization was not something planned for TalentWorld, but it is something we’re proud of. And we were recently reminded of how impactful that can be by leadership from our parent company, GardaWorld, who joined us at our Kickoff Townhall.

GardaWorld is one of the largest global security companies, and as you can imagine, being one of the biggest players in the security industry means a predominately male workforce. The all-male leadership team participated in our conference and the learnings they shared and the feedback they provided was a reminder of how having women at the top can bring about significant cultural change. 

It was a great opportunity for our company culture to shine! We got to show how we lead with empathy, transparency, and accountability. But most importantly, how these factors foster a high performing team. - Tracy Rocca, National Vice-President, TalentWorld

So, we ask again, what is the hype with female-led organizations? 

With TalentWorld in mind, there’s a lot to be hyped about! We are building something different in the staffing industry—with women at the forefront of this amazing change.

Join us for the rest of this month as we give some of the women of TalentWorld a platform to be radically honest about their career journey, the successes and the struggles.