Micro-steps for boosting workplace gender equality
When it comes to creating gender equality in the workplace, systemic changes are essential. However, those seismic shifts often take time, and it can be hard to see progress, leaving many of us feeling like equality is beyond our reach.
The truth is, like all systems change, measurable and tangible progress is often built on the back of smaller, incremental actions—otherwise known as micro-steps—that add up over time.
The power of micro-steps
The value of micro-steps is that they don’t require an overhaul of your organisation’s programs, policies and procedures overnight—although the time may come for that. Instead, they are simple, everyday actions that challenge the status quo and create an environment where diversity, equity and inclusion can flourish.
Studies from the Harvard Business Review indicate that implementing simple practices, like challenging unconscious bias in real-time or using gender-neutral language, can reduce the continual reinforcement of gender stereotypes and create a more inclusive environment over time.
That’s because these small, consistent ‘habit breakers’ disrupt ingrained patterns and unchallenged assumptions, prompting people to re-evaluate their everyday beliefs and behaviours.
Smaller actions, added together, lead to bigger change and higher accountability environments. For example, when employees—at any level—take micro-steps, such as normalising flexible work arrangements or speaking up when women and gender-diverse colleagues are interrupted, it builds momentum for more structural and significant reforms.
Micro-steps are powerful because they decentralise responsibility for change. They empower everyone, not just leadership, to take ownership of the process, which is key to overcoming entrenched systems of inequality and exclusion.
When change feels slow, take a micro-step
Institutional and systemic change can feel agonisingly slow and overwhelming, but it’s important to remember that micro-steps provide a tangible way to foster progress. Together, these small, intentional shifts help break down the barriers that hold systems of inequity in place, creating the conditions for larger, systemic transformations to flourish.
They might seem small, but they have the potential to shift mindsets, dismantle biases, and promote inclusion in ways that ultimately lead to lasting change.
Whether you're in the boardroom, on the factory line, or behind a desk, here are a series of micro-steps you can implement today—yes, literally today in 10 minutes or less—to lay the foundation for a more equitable and inclusive workplace for people of all genders and intersecting identities.
1. Review your next meeting invite
🔶 Action: Look at your next meeting invite list. Are women or gender-diverse people with intersecting identities represented, especially in decision-making roles? If not, why not? Perhaps it’s time to rethink your invite list or create a checklist to support meeting organisers.
Are people missing from positions of power across the organisation itself, or are they being excluded from decision making spaces? Reflect on who is missing and think about how you will rectify this.
✴️ Why it matters: Meetings where decisions are made often reflect existing power structures, and if women and gender-diverse people aren’t included, their perspectives won’t shape key decisions. This small change ensures your workplace benefits from diverse viewpoints and helps break down dynamics of exclusion.
2. Add Pronouns to Your Email Signature
🔶 Action: Take a minute to add your pronouns (e.g., she/her, they/them) to your email signature. It’s easy, visible, and can prompt others to do the same.
✴️ Why it matters: Including pronouns normalises conversations about gender identity and is a great way to minimise misgendering. It also helps to show that your workplace is committed to being inclusive of all genders, not just those that conform to the binary.
3. Challenge unconscious bias in real-time
🔶 Action: The next time you hear a gendered or biased comment, you have an opportunity to safely challenge or speak up. It doesn’t have to be confrontational—sometimes a simple ‘Hey, maybe we can rephrase that’ or ‘I wonder if there’s a more inclusive way to say that’ will get the point across.
✴️ Why it matters: Everyday bias can slip by unnoticed, but by calling it out, you create an opportunity for reflection and learning. This helps shift the culture toward one of respect and equality by making bias visible, but also by giving people the opportunity to do better.
4. Share a useful resource
🔶 Action: Take a moment to share an article, video, or gender equality toolkit with your team. Whether it’s a resource on closing the Gender Pay Gap or a guide on inclusive language, there is so much great content, easily and freely available, designed to spark important conversations and increase awareness.
✴️ Why it matters: We often hear that ‘knowledge is power’, but knowledge is also transformative. Sharing resources helps us all become more informed, innovate, make progress, reimagine systems, and create more inclusive environments for everyone.
5. Review a Job Description for bias
🔶 Action: Scan your current job description for gendered and coded language. Terms like ‘rockstar’, ‘ninja’, or even ‘competitive’ can skew towards masculine-coded language, let alone job titles that end in ‘-man’ or ‘-woman’. Reword them to be more inclusive.
✴️ Why it matters: Gendered job descriptions can discourage women, non-binary and gender-diverse people from applying. By adjusting the language, you make your workplace more welcoming to a broader range of candidates and create opportunities for greater diversity.
6. Brush up on your Pay Gaps
🔶 Action: If you’re getting your pay gaps mixed up with your equal pays, take 10 minutes to watch an explainer video from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. Make sure you're able to clearly articulate what the pay gap actually is, why it exists, and why regular pay gap analyses are important. If you want to take it a step further, learn how to debunk common myths about the pay gap using resources like this from Ladies Talk Money, or this from Verve Super.
✴️ Why it matters: Without an accurate and shared understanding of what the pay gap is (and isn’t), we hinder any meaningful attempts to close it. However, when we’re confident in explaining the facts, we can push back against misconceptions and foster more informed, constructive conversations about pay equity, to drive real change in our workplaces and beyond.
7. Acknowledge a colleague’s contribution
🔶 Action: Take a moment to publicly recognise the hard work of a woman or gender-diverse colleague in a meeting or team channel. Of course, the focus should always be on specific, meaningful achievements (not their identity) and it’s important to highlight how their contribution directly advanced a project or benefited the team.
✴️ Why it matters: Women and gender-diverse people are often overlooked when it comes to workplace recognition. Publicly acknowledging their contributions challenges gendered assumptions that only certain types of work (often done by men) are valuable.
8. Plan a Gender Equality Training Session
🔶 Action: Email or schedule a quick meeting with HR or leadership to propose adding gender equality or unconscious bias training to your annual training calendar. Suggest a few providers and how this might improve your workplace culture to get the conversation started.
✴️ Why it matters: Regular training on everything from bystander intervention to unconscious bias is key to creating long-term change. Planning ahead signals that your workplace takes these issues seriously and is actively working to improve.
9. Have a conversation about flexible work
🔶 Action: Initiate a conversation with your manager, HR, or team members about the current flexible work policies in place and use it as an opportunity to advocate for normalising flexibility at all levels.
Ask open-ended questions like: ‘In what ways could our current flexible work policies be improved to better support diverse needs and working styles?’ or ‘What could we do to make the take up of flexible work arrangements more consistent across all departments or levels in the organisation?’ Commit to following up on what you uncover at a later date.
✴️ Why it matters: Flexible work is often associated with women or caregivers, which reinforces gendered stereotypes about who is responsible for home or care duties. By making flexible work accessible to everyone, we can challenge the assumption that only certain people ‘need’ it. This helps to create a workplace culture where all employees feel able to adjust their schedules to balance their responsibilities, fostering a more inclusive and equitable environment.
The good news is that when men and non-traditional caregivers feel supported in using flexible work options, it helps reduce the gendered burden of unpaid care work on women, while boosting overall wellbeing.
10. Diversify your next panel or event
🔶 Action: If you’re organising or attending a panel, always review the lineup. Are women and gender-diverse people included? What about people with other intersecting identities? If not, perhaps suggest additional speakers to ensure more diverse and inclusive representation and consider taking the ‘Diversity Pledge’. Organisations like the Keynote Worthy, Speaking Out, and Victorian Women’s Trust have created great resources like the ‘Here She Is’ Directory to help you with the search.
✴️ Why it matters: Panels and public-facing roles often reinforce existing gender dynamics of whose opinions and insights matter. By suggesting diverse speakers, you ensure that women and gender-diverse experts are given visibility and influence in industry conversations.
Bonus action: Does your workplace have these key policies?
There are so many things we can do to improve gender equality in our workplaces, but one that often gets overlooked is policy. This micro-step can help us hold workplaces accountable for having concrete policies in place that support gender equality.
🔶 Action: Take 10 minutes to check if your workplace has the following policies in place:
🔸 Pay Equity → This includes regular pay audits, transparent pay structures, and actionable plans to close any gaps, as well as measures to collect and report on intersectional pay gap data to address all disparities.
🔸 Parental Leave → Offers equitable parental leave regardless of gender, with support for all caregivers.
🔸 Anti-Harassment and Anti-Discrimination → Protects employees from sexual harassment, bullying, and discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, race, or other identities.
🔸 Family Violence Leave → Provides paid leave and support for employees experiencing family or domestic violence.
🔸 Sexual Harassment → Essential to creating a safe, respectful workplace, this policy must clearly define unacceptable behaviors, reporting procedures, and provide protections for those who experience or witness harassment. Ensure that it applies an intersectional gender lens and is both trauma-informed and victim/survivor-centric.
🔸 Flexible Work → Supports flexible hours, remote work, and part-time arrangements for all employees, not just caregivers.
🔸 Diversity and Inclusion Policy → Actively promotes diversity in hiring, promotions, and leadership, with clear goals and accountability.
🔸 Inclusive Health and Wellbeing Support: Provides support for things like menopause, menstruation, mental health, and gender-affirming care.
If you can’t easily find them, ask HR or leadership where these policies are located and whether they’re up to date. And if they don’t yet exist, perhaps make a note to raise it at an upcoming team meeting or appropriate channel.
✴️ Why it matters: These policies are foundational to creating a gender-equal workplace. Ensuring that they not only exist but are easily accessible and actively supported sends a strong message that your organisation is committed to equity and inclusion. If they don’t exist, perhaps it’s time to start a conversation about creating them.
Micro-steps add up to big change
These micro-steps may seem small in isolation, but they can make a lasting impact on your organisation’s journey towards inclusion and equity. Remember, gender equality starts with you, but it takes all of us.
By embedding them into your ‘business as usual’, you actively challenge the barriers to gender equality and pave the way for larger, systemic change and a more inclusive and equitable workplace culture.
So, what are you going to do in the next 10 minutes to help close the gender gap?
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