At Trane Technologies, we nurture an inclusive culture where people can bring their best selves to work every day. To cultivate inclusivity, we promote and enable employee-led networks that bring people together, create community, and build bridges of understanding. We strive to provide development opportunities that deepen compassion and understanding and remove systemic barriers through our policies and procedures. As an organization, we have always been committed to diversity and inclusion and are proud and active members of Paradigm for Parity (our commitment to address the corporate leadership gender gap) and CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion (the largest CEO-driven business commitment to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace).
Paradigm for Parity has a 5-point action plan to catalyze change to secure the best leaders of tomorrow. One of the actions is to “identify women of potential and give them sponsors as well as mentors”; we created the Sponsoring Women to Success Program, where a senior leader within the SBU/ Function acts as the sponsor to provide active support and advocate for the woman employee. This is not a guarantee or promise for advancement but a representation of the sponsor for the woman employee in the right forums and to help them gain visibility for Career Advancement. It is also an opportunity for the beneficiary to obtain real-time feedback and guidance on their career aspirations.
Since the launch of this program in 2017, we have had over 100 participants. The program is run annually, and it was initially for 6 months, however, from last year for the 5th batch of participants, the program now runs for 6-12 months, providing the sponsored women with flexibility based on their requirements.
Women, who are part of this program usually get paired with a sponsor who isn’t in their reporting structure, therefore providing them a different perspective on their career planning. The sponsored woman is allowed to define the direction of the meetings based on whatever she needs, be it a career conversation, stretch projects to work on based on a particular area of interest, coaching/ mentoring, job shadowing, etc. By keeping the structure flexible and the ownership of the success of the program on the sponsored women, we have seen a variety of benefits from this program. Three main benefits of the program are richer talent review discussions, development opportunities through stretch assignments and expanding network, and even talent mobility where women have been able to move to a different vertical of their interest.
Here are some comments from women sponsors who have been a part of this program:
“Helped boost confidence to speak one’s opinions, helped to modulate the responses considering the audience”
“The discussion helped me to know how I should approach managing teams.”
“Most importantly, I got more inspiration from the Sponsor’s advice and also we agreed upon discussing collaborated projects between Chennai and Bangalore team”
“Sponsor connected me with Women leaders to share their experience in a leadership role (which will help in filling my gaps)”
“The sponsorship program enabled me to move into the domain that I am aspiring for. This makes my professional life more interesting and hoping to explore the field of my interest.”
We know that to lead the change we want to see in our business, industry, and world, we must commit to cultivating a workforce that reflects the communities where we live and work. We are also proud to have some of our sponsored women becoming sponsors themselves after they have moved up the ladder over the years. While this is an intensive program and has a lot of touchpoints to keep the momentum going, we continue to invest in this program. Conversations and career development are tailored to suit the need of women employees. It is one way of contributing to our 2030 sustainability commitments – the opportunity for all, as we believe everyone deserves the chance to thrive.
