Lloyds Sets Female Management Quota Targets
05.02.2014
Lloyds has made the decision to set a target for the number of women that it employs in senior management roles. It hopes that by 2020, at least 40 percent of those roles will be filled by women, but is this really good news for gender equality? Lloyds is the first FTSE 100 company to openly declare that it has set a target to improve gender diversity at the highest levels. It currently employs around 5,000 people at the senior level, and wants to increase the number of women at that level from the current 28 percent to around 40 percent. While this initiative may seem positive on the surface, there are some analysts who have expressed concern over the potential ramifications of the quota. If Lloyds meets the quota by 2020, but underperforms during that time then it could provide anti-quota campaigners with the ammunition that they need to reignite their campaign against giving women “special treatment”. There are many people who feel that hiring quotas are a form of “tokenism”, and that women are being given special treatment that is undeserved. Even career women have been known to speak out against hiring quotas because they prefer to know, and be able to demonstrate, that they were hired based purely on their own merit. Lloyds has a lot of work to do to change the hiring culture in FTSE 100 companies in general, and banks in particular. However, they are already ahead of the curve with their 28% management makeup. Source: http://shareprices.com/
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