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pipeline

Progress for women stalled in corporate America

26 October, 2018 By WiC

WomenintheWorkplace

For the last four years, companies in the USA have reported that they are highly committed to gender diversity. But that commitment has not translated into meaningful progress.

Women continue to be vastly underrepresented at every level. For women of color, it’s even worse. Only about one in five senior leaders is a woman, and one in twenty-five is a woman of color.

Progress isn’t just slow—it’s stalled.

The latest report from LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company is the largest study of its kind, with four years of data from 462 companies employing nearly 20 million people.

A closer look at the corporate pipeline

Since 2015, the first year of this study, corporate America has made almost no progress in improving women’s representation. From the outset, fewer women than men are hired at the entry level. And at every subsequent step, the representation of women further declines. Women of color are the most underrepresented group of all—behind white men, men of color, and white women.

Women are doing their part.

They’ve been earning more bachelor’s degrees than men for over 30 years. They’re asking for promotions and negotiating salaries as often as men. And contrary to conventional wisdom, women are not leaving the workforce at noticeably higher rates to care for children—or for any other reason.

Yet only half of employees think that their company sees gender diversity as a priority and is doing what it takes to make progress—and 20% of employees think their company’s commitment to gender diversity feels like lip service.

Now companies need to do theirs.

This starts with making the business case for diversity, which research shows leads to better performance and more innovation. Then companies need to explain to employees why making a personal commitment to hire, promote, mentor and support women is good not just for business, but for their own careers. Whether CEO or entry-level employee, the person who can work better with half the population will get better results.

Once companies make the case, they need to follow through by reporting on progress and holding managers and leaders accountable for results. Most companies aren’t taking these basic yet critical steps to correct their gender gaps.

To make progress quickly, companies should focus on the two biggest levers: hiring and promotions.

As it stands now, women are disadvantaged from the beginning. At the entry level, when one might expect an equal number of men and women to be hired, men get 54% of jobs, while women get 46%. At the next step, the gap widens. Women are less likely to be hired and promoted into manager-level jobs; for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 79 women are. As a result, men end up holding 62% of manager positions, while women hold only 38%.

The fact that men are far more likely than women to get that first promotion to manager is a red flag. It’s highly doubtful that there are significant enough differences in the qualifications of entry-level men and women to explain this degree of disparity. More probably, it’s because of performance bias. Research shows that both men and women overestimate men’s performance and underestimate women’s. This may be particularly acute for women at the start of their careers, when their track records are shortest—and for women of color, who are up against both gender and racial bias.

Companies should foster an inclusive and respectful culture.

Women are more likely to face everyday discrimination—or microaggressions—like being subjected to demeaning comments, having to provide more evidence of their competence, or being mistaken for someone much more junior. For 64% of women—and 71% of lesbian women–microaggressions are a workplace reality. Sexual harassment also continues to pervade the workplace: 35% of women have experienced sexual harassment at some point in their career, from hearing sexist jokes to being touched in an inappropriately sexual way.

Women and men point to the need for companies to do more to create a safe and respectful work environment. Only 27% of employees say that managers regularly challenge biased language and behavior when they observe it. Forty percent say that disrespectful behavior toward women is often quickly addressed by their company. And just 32% think that their company swiftly acts on claims of sexual harassment.

Women are too often the “Only” one

Too few women results in too many “Onlys”—women who are the only or one of the only women in the room. One in five women is an Only, and they are having a significantly worse experience than women who work with more women. They are more likely to deal with microaggressions. They often feel on guard, pressure to perform, and left out. And they are almost twice as likely to have been sexually harassed during the course of their career.

These negative experiences take a toll on women Onlys. Despite having higher ambitions to be promoted and become a top executive, they are 1.5 times more likely to think about leaving their job than women who are not Onlys.

What women say

I sit on our promotion committee. One thing I see is that when women are given more scope and responsibility, and then they deliver success, it takes six months to a year for them to be recognized. Whereas when men get a new responsibility, I’ve seen them immediately get promoted or get recognized without creating any deliverable.
(VP, 6 years at company)

There needs to be a whole lot more accountability. Companies need to be accountable for developing, mentoring, and sponsoring women. And they have to become accountable for hiring more women so that the pipeline is full. Without that kind of accountability, talk about diversity is just lip service.
(SVP, 20 years at company)

I was in the elevator and pressed the button for the executive office. Someone said to me, ‘Um, no honey. That’s for the executive offices. The interns are going to this floor.’
(Director, 4 years at company)

 

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Filed Under: Diversity Tagged With: diversity, female, pipeline

Ethnic diversity in FTSE100 increased by 5%

23 August, 2017 By WiC

Yet 58% of the main boards at these companies have no ethnic minority presence

Progress is gradually being made by ethnic minorities at the UK’s top companies as more move up the management funnel, but many still do not offer a fair representation of British society according to a study by Green Park.

The executive search firm has released its latest Leadership 10,000 report analysing the backgrounds of those holding the top 20 roles within the UK’s major corporates including chief executives (CEOs), chief financial officers (CFOs) and chairmen, as well as the next 100 most senior roles in FTSE 100-listed companies.

The report finds that ethnic diversity within the leadership pipeline at FTSE 100 companies has increased to 5%, the highest level for four years.

However, 58% of the main boards at these companies have no ethnic minority presence, despite a recommendation in the UK government’s Parker Review published last November that no FTSE 100 board should be exclusively white by 2020. The latest figure represents only a slight improvement on the 62 companies that recorded all-white main boards in last year’s report.

The firm also reports worrying signs that previous progress and momentum could be starting to reverse.

While the pipeline is improving there remains a question over whether minorities can break through the glass ceiling, as the top roles in companies remain a closed shop for ethnic minority and female leaders, comments Green Park.

There has been a decrease of 18% in the number of ethnic minorities holding positions at chair, CEO and CFO level in FTSE 100 companies.

There remains no female ethnic minority CEO or CFO in the FTSE 100 and women still only hold 6% of the top 300 jobs. Looking at the ethnicity of the 21 chair, CEO and CFO positions held by women in the FTSE, 20 are white. White women are twice as likely to reach the top three positions in a FTSE 100 company compared to an ethnic minority male and 20 times more likely than an ethnic minority female.”

The analysis also highlights the companies that outperform their FTSE100 peers in terms of diversity. InterContinental Hotels Group is the top performing FTSE 100 company in Green Park’s rankings for gender and ethnic diversity, followed by banking group Standard Chartered and the Anglo-Dutch consumer products specialist Unilever.

Raj Tulsiani, CEO of Green Park said:

In a world where access to top talent from abroad may be increasingly limited, it would be foolish for major enterprises to continue to ignore talent from underrepresented groups.

The reduction in female leaders in so many industry sectors is a worrying trend, especially as it coincides with the first rise in black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) representation in four years. Given the need for greater cultural empathy in a post- Brexit Britain being able to move forward sustainably will become an increasingly important element of brand trust in the eyes of the public, regulators and institutional investors.

What we are seeing is a trend to ‘tick the boxes’ in diversity recruitment. FTSE companies have had initiatives to improve gender diversity on the board, but now appear to be focusing more on improving their pipelines of future leaders from ethnically diverse backgrounds. The organisations that succeed will adopt a more inclusive overall recruitment strategy, rather than addressing each initiative in isolation.”

 


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Visit our searchable Knowledge Bank for a selection of reports and studies on gender diversity, leadership and similar subjects.

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Filed Under: Diversity, Reports Tagged With: BAME, diversity, gender, leadership, pipeline

Improving female representation in leadership positions

11 July, 2016 By WiC

Female Representation

Leaders from some of Britain’s largest companies are to undertake a government-backed review on improving female representation in leadership positions of British business.

The review, which will be led by Sir Philip Hampton, chair of GlaxoSmithKline, and Dame Helen Alexander, chair of UBM, will focus on ensuring the very best of female talent make their way up the pipeline by removing barriers to their success, and continue to drive forward the momentum from Lord Davies’s work – which pushed the numbers of females on FTSE 100 boards up from 12.5% to 26%.

The review broadens the ambition to the entire FTSE 350 and raising the target to 33% of women on boards by 2020.

The focus for the work on the pipeline will be on representation on executive committees and direct reports to the executive committee in FTSE 350 companies.

Sir Philip Hampton said:

It is clear that gender balance on FTSE boards has undergone a dramatic shift in recent years and this progress continues. However, we must significantly increase the number of women in senior leadership roles if we are to harness the skills of women for the benefit of business and the UK economy.

A key element of the review will also consider current research on how to drive improvements and the obstacles preventing women’s progression. It is expected that findings will be presented to government by the end of 2016.

In order to meet the 33% target for FTSE 350 boards by 2020, a constant turnover is required and an appointment rate of one in three board positions going to women.

Turnover rates have decreased, with fewer people leaving and joining companies, and the percentage of new appointments going to women over the past six months dropping below the one in three required to meet the 33% target.

Progress in the executive ranks and in the executive pipeline remains very slow. Only 9.7% of executive directors in the FTSE 100 are women, dropping to only 5.6% in the FTSE 250.

Women in the City has curated a number of key gender diversity reports in its searchable Knowledge Bank

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Filed Under: WIC Comment Tagged With: career, development, diversity, female, gender, leadership, pipeline, talent, workplace

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