Think, Act, Report: Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Successfully engaging women at lower level to push for promotion
While our CEO is female, 40% of our board is female and 33% of UK directors are women, analysis of employee data showed that female employees needed support at lower levels to push for promotion. This is particularly important given that the company promotes from within for 99% of positions.
Our Women In Leadership teams identified a need for women to connect with each other and share experiences, however our branches are spread all over the country, so a virtual solution was required: an online women’s magazine showcasing Enterprise Rent-A-Car’s successful women was launched.
Since its launch, we have seen more women returning from maternity leave, more women getting promoted, and women being more engaged than men in our employee opinion survey.
Issue to be resolved
We operate a decentralised structure with more than 4,500 employees working at over 400 locations around the UK. Most locations are small branches with five or so employees and perhaps only one female employee. Our Women in Leadership groups told us that they would like to help women employees to better connect with each other at peer-to-peer level, to share stories first hand that reinforce corporate messages and communications from management about how the company helps women to succeed.
Action taken
A few years ago we thought that a new internal social media HUB would be a key to better communication between our women. After the site was created, despite dedicated female zones, we saw minimal effect.
Our Human Resources Director identified the opportunity to create a magazine addressing the concerns of women in our business. The result was DRIVE, an online and hard copy publication targeted particularly at lower to mid-level management that are most in need of connecting.
DRIVE profiles recent promotions and provides advice/information on how to make the most of the company career ladder.
Our first edition was launched in August 2013 and we have produced six editions. Hardcopy editions are sent to all directors/ leadership teams a week before the online version is released, so everyone is aware of when the online edition is published. Directors then send hard copies to each branch or post to women at home if they are on maternity leave.
Results
More women are returning from maternity leave. The current return rate is 91% and one region had 100% return. More women are getting promoted to regional leadership roles with a 100% increase in women at regional operational roles and women accounting for 51.31% of last year’s promotions. Our employee opinion survey results showed women view leadership more favourably than men and their career development and advancement significantly higher (5%).
Increase in engagement with DRIVE
Views on the day of deployment have grown by more than 33% in the last three issues. New user sessions have more than doubled in each of the last three issues. Users are viewing 1.62 pages per session. Over 650 employees read DRIVE online on the first day with 2200 employees reading the last edition.
Next Steps
To build sustainability, we are:
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Growing DRIVE’s Editorial Board
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Taking our campaign to Twitter to engage externally with our business partners and universities that we recruit from
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Reviewing development of an application for employee’s personal devices to host the magazine.