Tuesday 8 March 2016

Women in the workplace


International Women’s Day 2016


As a manager or leader would you agree that a core requirement of your role is ‘good business sense’? 


CMI Southern Inclusion Lead Jo Strain asks managers in the region: “It is more than 100 years  since the first International Women’s Day, and while every UK organisation complies with the UK Equality Act (or risks huge fines), how many really understand that embracing diversity in their operation and leadership team can be a cost-effective option to achieve outstanding results?”

Research by Grant Thornton into UK, USA and Indian-quoted companies with at least one female on the board found a $430bn return-on-assets differential compared to men-only boards in 2014. A McKinsey report indicates that the most gender-diverse companies are 15% more likely to outperform the least diverse.

Academic research from the National University of Singapore in 2014 confirmed that boards comprising at least two ethnic groups, two generations and both genders produced an average return on assets of 5.1% - compared to just 1.1% for boards that did not have any diversity in their workforce.

UK executive boards are still predominantly white male.  While the Davies Review headlined that women comprise 26.1% of boards in the FTSE 100, up from 12.5% in 2010, if you look under the covers this has mostly been achieved by the appointment of women into non-exec roles.

The Green Park study in spring 2015 found the proportion of non-white managers at the Top 100 level in the FTSE 100 has fallen from 6.2% to 5.7% in the 12 months between the springs of 2014 and 2015, with roughly 40 out of 480 non-white leaders exiting their posts.  The report also confirmed leaders who were women or from minority ethnic backgrounds featured disproportionately as non-executive board directors, which suggested they had far less influence than may have been expected by the statistics.

In contrast, 2015 British Library figures show that a two-year government scheme to run business-support services from public libraries encouraged more than double the national average of women to start their own firms

Jo Strain, CMI Southern Inclusion Lead, said: “Good management and leadership are essential to any successful organisation and should be focused on making best use of all available resources.”

She added: “The culture we create, sustain and reward in our organisations is shaped and driven by its leadership. For example some organisations like Google track and publish their diversity statistics. Where the data is not as good as you might expect, it is important to be on the firm’s leadership agenda and for them to have an active plan to improve.

“Organisations that understand the business value of diversity and embrace it throughout their operation are more likely to deliver superior results and longevity.  Is your organisation aiming for mediocracy or stand out results?”

International Women’s Day

Women in Management

8 Ways to Close the Gender pay gap, CMI website