Top three benefits:
- Get more out of diverse teams and benefit from the qualities of women in leadership positions.
- Become a more attractive employer, which helps to attract and retain motivated staff at a lower cost.
- Tap into the knowledge of field staff for swifter identification of problems and development of solutions that really work.
Top three challenges:
- Not all countries acknowledge legal forms such as social enterprises, and business certifications such as B corp might require prohibitive administrative and legal efforts.
- Having more opinions might lead to more discussions and slower decision-making, if not well facilitated.
- While investors increasingly appreciate diverse and equitable organisations, fundraising might be more challenging if a company uses non-traditional governance models.
Photo credit: BBC StoryWorks
Trailblazers:
- Instead of granting company shares to senior executives only, Wasoko gives all their full-time employees stock options through an Employees Share Option Plan (ESOP) which is a model that gains popularity among African tech startups.
- SolarAid (GDC member) has explored ways to scale sales of solar energy products by setting up microfinance cooperatives led by sales agents (read more in the How-to-guide they developed with the GDC).
- GDC member OX Delivers is in the process of becoming B Corp certified, which holds them accountable to a range of impact standards moving forward. Read our spotlight on OX here.
- Let us know who else should be on this list
Resources:
- The GDC and Value for Women present various business strategies for how to improve gender equality, drawing upon lessons from last mile distributors.
- Efficiency for Access did a thoughtful assessment of how inclusive the lighting and appliances sector currently is.
- We Are Stewards is a Netherlands based organisation that offers a unique governance blueprint to companies and investors that want to safeguard their purpose.
- Check out this overview of B Corps in Africa and guidelines for how to apply.
- Explore an intro to Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOP) on Investopedia.