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/ Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Women in Business 2022: Are we making progress?
Despite negative predictions, women managed to make headway in 2021
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Zoe Landi Fontana, The Weekly Journal
@Landi_Zoe
omen make up about 50% of the population, but not 50% of the boardroom. Yet, although we’re still waiting for adequate representation at all levels of organizations, Grant Thornton’s Women in Business 2022 report found numerous advancements for women in senior leadership roles. “It is essential for companies to become more equal,” says Anna Johnson, CEO of Grant Thornton Sweden. “It is a requirement for being attractive to both customers and employees. Gender equality is something we as leaders must prioritize every day, in every decision we make.” Last year, THE WEEKLY JOURNAL reported that globally women in senior roles made up 31%. This year, that number stands at 32%.
The Numbers Globally
By 2025, we could see 34% of women globally in senior management positions. While last year certain regions landed below the 30% benchmark, this year all monitored regions performed positively, led by improvements in Africa, where female leaders make up 40% of overall senior roles. “Mature markets sometimes find it more difficult to change,” notes Grant Thornton International’s Larissa Keijzer. “The numbers show emerging markets are speeding up, whereas Europe and North America are still changing their mindset over female leaders. Other markets just see talent, while established markets have to reinvent themselves.” Not only is it important to look at the percentage of senior leadership roles filled by women, but it is necessary to identify which roles they hold. Within C-Level positions, women typically
dominate human resources or other roles seen as “supporting” rather than “operating”. An outlier in which female representation is markedly strong is the role of CFO, an operational position. Women hold almost half of CFO positions in Africa, and 42% in Latin America. North America, considered a more traditional economy, bring up the rear, with 38%. “Ultimately, we would hope to see an even spread of female talent across all senior positions. Then the concept of gender-specific skill sets and attributes will be abandoned, and individuals allowed to excel where their talents lie,” the report stated.
to this – those businesses with women on their senior management teams recorded impressive performance compared to those that weren’t so gender diverse.”
Areas of Improvement
Of the surveyed businesses, 95% are taking deliberate steps towards greater employee inclusion, with a focus on cultural change, psychological safety, and work-life balance. The most popular issue for companies to resolve is work-life balance. 47% of respondents agreed that their company was working on it. Following closely are creating an inclusive environment How Gender Diversity Impacts The where all people can contribute ideas, and discuss issues and questions, and instilling working Workplace practices to increase employee According to McKinsey’s 2021 engagement - factoring in those Women in the Workplace report, working remotely. Another 41% women tend to have different cited adapting learning and leadership styles. Women leaders development programs to the take more steps to support Globally, changing working environment as their teams and check on their women hold a key issue. employees’ wellbeing, taking on 32% of senior 73% of respondents agreed emotional supportive roles in management that flexible working styles and their companies in addition to positions. hybrid location models, most of their regular duties. which developed as a result of Such an approach has become COVID-19, will benefit women’s an important aspect of leadership career paths long term as they throughout the pandemic allow for them to juggle childcare which has seen the portrait of responsibilities and other child-rearing tasks. an effective leader evolve, with an emphasis on Despite this optimism, leaders must remain mental health. cognizant of the unconscious bias to promote and Additionally, awareness of environmental, social, provide more opportunities to those who work in and governance issues (ESG) has grown. The World the office, and with whom they get more “face time” Economic Forum highlighted the rise of stakeholder day-to-day, a phenomenon identified by Natasha capitalism, which emphasizes the creation of longBowman, a business consultant, as “The Zoom term value by meeting the needs of everyone Ceiling”. affected by, or with a stake in, the company. Grant “If companies go back to purely face to face or Thornton’s research found that in the wake of the pandemic, 61% of businesses have been encouraged to hybrid working, where some people dial in and others are in the office, and if men go back into by their stakeholders to increase gender parity. the offices and see each other, and the women “Profitability is one of the benefits of having a combine work and home roles and become more inclusive talent pool gender-wise,” explained Mai Sigue-Bisnar of Grant Thornton’s Punongbayan less visible, we could get a reversed diversity and Araullo branch in the Philippines, “The recently trend,” warned Larissa Keijzer, of Grant Thornton International. published results of the Fortune 500 survey attest
In fact,
