Champions of Change Coalition has launched 7 Switches, an innovative and practical guide to help deliver inclusive gender equality through better design and organisational decision making.

The guide is an essential business tool to future-proof for fairer, safer and equal environments for women, girls and gender diverse people. It aims to help ensure inclusion is built into the design of any business system, project, process, service or product rather than bolted on or retrofitted to legacy systems once issues arise.

We use the words “glitch”, “malfunctions”, “switch” and “circuit breakers” as simple and relatable metaphors to help define the complex issues we are trying to address with this work, and engage as many people as possible in the action needed to accelerate change.

The Guide describes:

Decision Glitches: Everyday business decisions are not intentionally or systematically supporting inclusive gender equality. This may be driven by unconscious biases, a range of which are brought to life in the 7 Switches resource.

Malfunctions: Decision Glitches lead to Malfunctions where women, girls and gender-diverse people are often invisible, under-served, excluded, and/or harmed by decision-making outcomes. We share local and global examples demonstrating the immediate and longer-term impact on women, girls and gender equality.

7 Switches: Simple interventions or Switches can be used to shift mindsets, behaviours and decisions to help achieve inclusive gender equality. Think of each Switch as a practical way to intentionally factor gender equality into any decision or design process.

Circuit-breakers: CEOs, leaders and teams can ask key questions that act as Circuit Breakers throughout the decision-making process to help embed inclusive gender equality for the future. We provide a suite of questions to help ensure the needs of diverse women and girls are considered and that gender equality overall is supported.

Switched on decisions: Case studies on how each Switch is reflected in the actions and decisions of Champions of Change Coalition Members over the last 14 years.

Inclusive gender equality by design: recognises that diversity, equity and inclusion strategies must consider and engage all genders in global efforts to achieve gender equality, with a particular focus on elevating and advancing currently under-represented and marginalised groups. At its core, the intent is to create respectful, safe and inclusive cultures of belonging for all.

Pilot Phase – Next steps

• We are establishing pilot working groups across the Coalition on:
  • inclusive AI
  • Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
  • supply chain
  • development of the STEM pipeline; and
  • strategies to avoid the weaponisation of essential services (banking, insurance, energy, telecommunications) in domestic and family violence cases.
• Champions of Change Coalition has been invited by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to present the pilot 7 Switches guide at an event by Equity 2030 Alliance on 14 March 2024 as part of the 68^th Commission for the Status of Women in New York. The Equity 2030 alliance was established by UNFPA in 2023 to take action on closing the gender gap in the design of technological, science and financing solutions. Recognising the innovation potential of 7 Switches, they will work with us over the next 6 months to bring global perspectives and partners to the project to inspire wider adoption, application and amplification of the 7 Switches
• We are welcoming feedback from our stakeholders as we holistically pilot the approach over the coming months towards the release of a more detailed and final resource by the end of 2024.

We know through our 14 years of work as a Coalition that individuals, businesses and communities are better served when the needs of all people are considered in decisions and design processes. Whether unconscious or unintended, the consequences of poor decision making can range from annoying to unfair, unsafe and even catastrophic for women, girls and gender diverse people.

The goal of 7 Switches is to break from these past mistakes and systemically support more leaders, organisations and communities to make decisions that proactively build gender equality into the future from the beginning.

It provides organisations with specific examples of how unconscious biases can impact decision-making and design processes, while also offering a more systematic and granular approach for applying a gender lens for optimal and equitable outcomes.

For years, organisations have ignored or under-served the unique needs of women and gender diverse people and/or invested heavily in fixing legacy systems that originally neglected over half of the population, often causing harm. Examples of this are provided in the 7 Switches guide and also found in resources such as Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez¹  and this short article by Navika Mehta: “How a man’s world systematically neglects women.”

7 Switches aims to help break from these patterns and instead thoughtfully and methodically integrate inclusive gender equality into the operational fabric of organisations. Embracing it could also drive innovation, market expansion, and other commercial advantages as organisations begin to respond to unmet needs.

For example, women’s full and equal participation in economic activity has the potential to unlock $128 billion in additional value to the Australian economy each year.^[1] Taking a more systematic approach may also help reduce the USD 7 trillion annual global cost of gender inequality in the workplace^[2] and realise the USD 28 trillion increase in global GDP on offer by closing the gender pay gap.[3]

^{[1] Breaking the Norm, Deloitte Access Economics and Australians Investing in Women (AIIW), November 2022}

^{[2] Close the Gender Gap to Unlock Productivity Gains, Moody Analytics, March 2023}

[3]^{The Power of Parity: How Advancing Women’s Equality Can Add $12 Trillion to Global Growth, McKinsey Initially published 1 September 2015}

The guide identifies common decision ‘glitches’ and ‘malfunctions’ impacting progress towards inclusive gender equality. It also outlines 7 Switches that can be activated by leaders and organisations to avoid repeating mistakes of the past, while proactively building gender equality into the future.

The 7 Switches highlight opportunities for organisations to ensure:

1. The active inclusion and engagement of diverse women in decision making end-to-end.
2. Contributions, perspectives and achievements are equally valued for all genders.
3. The autonomy, independence, freedom and privacy of women and girls are enabled through all decisions.
4. Health and safety for all genders is prioritised and never traded off.
5. The attributes and needs of women at every life stage are factored into design.
6. Harmful gender stereotypes, norms and expectations impeding equality are eliminated; and
7. Equal or corrective investments are made to eradicate gender inequity.

These insights provide any business or leader with practical guidance to ensure inclusive gender equality is built in – not bolted on – to every project, policy, product, service, system and process at the outset.

You can use 7 Switches to introduce and embed inclusive gender equality in your organisation’s decision making and design processes. Here’s how to get started:

• Consider the ‘glitches’ and ‘malfunctions’ identified throughout the 7 Switches Can you identify any of these pain points or examples of unconscious bias in your organisation, including systems, processes or policies you’re responsible for or have in development?
• Share the ‘7 Switches’ with your leadership team, employee resource groups and business system leads to raise awareness, stimulate thinking and action, and embed a more systematic approach to gender equal and inclusive decisions and design. The Switches can act as your ‘gender lens’ on key projects and decisions.
• Identify one or more projects in your organisation where the 7 Switches could be piloted and outcomes assessed.
• Use the ‘circuit breaker’ questions outlined in 7 Switches as prompts to ensure inclusive gender equality is built in – not bolted on – to every project, policy, product, service, system and process at the outset.
• Share the ‘7 Switches’ as part of organisational gender equality and inclusion initiatives (e.g. International Women’s Day activities, Employee Resource Groups, Project, ESG/Diversity/People Committees, and Change Management teams).
• Share case studies internally and externally, including the benefits, challenges and lessons learned from applying the guidance in 7 Switches in your organisation’s decision making and design processes.

It is becoming easier to identify the issues created when the needs of women, girls and gender diverse people are not explicitly considered from the outset; at the same time, stakeholders are calling for more gender inclusive approaches – for example by:

• identifying how unconscious biases impact decisions and design;
• applying a ‘gender lens’ to projects, procurement or decisions; or
• through Gender Impact Assessments (GIAs).

However, there is often a lack of specificity or guidance for organisations on how to intentionally design for inclusive gender equality from the outset and every step of the way, with an eye on the common pitfalls, pain points, trade-offs and opportunities for innovation.

Our Members wanted to create something simple, practical, relatable, memorable and systematic to help embed inclusive gender equality into existing decision-making and design processes. 7 Switches should enhance existing principles and processes rather than replace them.

Over time, we hope 7 Switches will be adopted, adapted and/or embedded across a whole range of systems within organisations, across sectors or at a National / Governmental level. For example, they could influence industry codes, procurement criteria, marketing guidelines, investment strategies.

We also wanted to create a common language and approach for building gender equality into decisions and design, which can also be used to call out when people, organisations, sectors and nations get it right and wrong.

We use the words “glitch”, “malfunctions”, “switch” and “circuit breakers” as simple and relatable metaphors to help define the complex issues we are trying to address with this work and engage as many people as possible in the action needed to accelerate change.

Our experience across the Coalition, is that people rarely set out to make decisions that deliberately underserve or harm women, girls, gender diverse people or global goals for gender equality.  Most often, they are unintentional “glitches” in thinking underpinned by unconscious biases, blindspots, adherence to outdated gender norms and stereotypes or legacy systems and processes that were not originally designed with consideration to the requirements and benefits of inclusive gender equality.

The 7 Switches are designed to help guide decision and design processes to ensure they work as best possible for all genders and to maximise the value of inclusive gender equality.

A 12-month collaboration, 7 Switches draws on national and international research, feedback from expert advisors, key stakeholders and the experience of the Coalition and its members to develop one practical decision-making guide for addressing and embedding inclusive gender equality. This included leadership and investment from Jacobs and CSIRO, supported by a cross-Coalition working group.

The project team included Members, Implementation Leaders, Program Directors, Convenors and subject matter experts (SMEs) from various industries/sectors including, Jacobs, CSIRO, Telstra, Amazon, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI), Suncorp Insurance, Scentre Group, Lendlease, Sport Group and Fire and Emergency.

We also engaged widely with stakeholders such as Chief Executive Women, UN Women (Australia), and the Women’s Leadership Institute of Australia in the development of this approach.

7 Switches is an innovative concept developed by Champions of Change Coalition and Member organisations have committed to a series of 7 Switches pilots, customising and integrating its insights into their decision making and design processes during the coming year.

Through application and implementation by Coalition Members, the 7 Switches will continue to be refined and developed. As adoption accelerates, we will share insights and case studies from Member organisations on its value and performance against success measures, so that other leaders and organisations can thoughtfully and methodically integrate inclusive gender equality into everything they do.

Having women represented in design decision-making processes is critical but we have learned that a more systematic approach is required to accelerate change. 7 Switches captures insights and lessons learned from our 14 years’ experience as a Coalition, to provide a comprehensive and easy to use guide which any leader or team can refer to.

As we want more leaders, organisations and communities to make 7 Switches decisions that support the achievement of inclusive gender equality we intend to share the learnings and insights gained by Coalition Members as they apply and implement the 7 Switches in their decision making and design processes. We will further engage with stakeholders and the community as this work progresses.

Anyone can download the guide by from the Champions of Change Coalition website. Coalition Members have access to the full guide and many are already customising and integrating its innovative insights in their decision making and design processes.

While Coalition Member organisations will provide feedback so we can continue to refine and develop the 7 Switches over time, we very much welcome feedback from non-Member organisations as well.

For more information or to share your feedback on this project, please contact Julie Bissinella, Director of Engagement and Impact at Champions of Change Coalition.