Female professionals working within firm structures have historically faced obstacles when seeking opportunities for career advancement and succession. When striving to attain partnership positions or senior and executive roles, they’ve come up against barriers such as lack of client development opportunities, insufficient mentoring prospects, and exclusion from informal male-only networks that are used by men to achieve progression.

As an industry example, statistics show that around 70% of law graduates are in fact female, indicating that women are very well represented within lower level law firm roles. It therefore remains to be seen why opportunities to attain partnership and leadership status aren’t as accessible to female firm members.

However, Australian professional service firms are beginning to recognise the need to develop a forum for women in which to share information and better enable career progression and success. These networks are not only providing women with development resources to advance within their organisations into leadership, but are also revealing how inclusive practices can translate into a competitive advantage for the firm.

This one-day conference will allow you to hear practical and innovative case studies from leading firms who have made the advancement of female members a priority. You will learn how to implement women’s initiatives to retain a diverse workforce and improve the organisation’s business processes and bottom-line.

The following critical areas will be explored:
• Developing a framework for career progression
• Identifying the key success factors for a successful women’s network
• Gathering, collecting and effectively using data and statistics
• Integrating flexible work practices into partnership positions
• Exploring workplace harassment and its effects on female progression
• Realising how advancing female talent can translate into firm profit

In relation to the one-day workshop, potential topics may include:
1) The nuts and bolts of women’s initiatives
2) How to effectively carry out the change piece
3) How to break down stereotypes
4) How to formulate and position a business case focusing on women’s initiatives
5) Benchmarking information from data and statistics (based on traction and retention of female talent)
6) Implementing a toolkit developed for executives
7) “Brand Me” – about selling yourself