Gender diversity programmes: Do they need a radical rethink?
The business case for diversity has been made — increased performance, higher employee engagement and more innovation. But gender diversity in the workplace is still lagging. Among Fortune 500 firms, only 6.4% have female CEOs.
Corporate gender diversity programmes are often the solution to placing more females in senior positions within companies and boardrooms. In Europe, government mandates for women on boards are in place in several countries, but to mixed results. With increased pressure on companies to hire and retain more women, companies are reflecting on whether the current models for increasing gender diversity are fit for purpose.
French rail company SNCF hired its first woman train driver in 1982; today it has 200 women out of 10,000 drivers. “Is 2% in three decades enough?” asked SNCF Women’s Network President Francesca Aceto at the Women’s Forum Global Meeting 2017. “I don’t think so.” She asked whether we should continue with something that is “fundamentally flawed,” or instead “revolutionize it.”
Calling diversity training “woeful” in the United States, Kate Glazebrook, CEO of Applied said there was a need to tear up structures within human resources departments and start over. “We need to confront the evidence and say it doesn’t work. We need a radical rethink.”
But not everyone agrees the blueprint for diversity programmes should be torn up. Some executives see evidence that shows they should be rebuilt and improved.
The board of directors at Sodexo is now 50% women, said Sodexo’s Rohini Anand, Senior Vice President of Corporate Responsibility and Global Chief Diversity Officer, some proof that diversity programmes do work “if they are done right,” which should include clear targets and accountability.
Kate Burns, CEO of Media Tech, Hambro Perks said she had seen the number of women in senior roles increase, slowly but surely, adding that even a minority female representation at the top could have an enormous impact on other female employees.
Real improvement to these programmes — and increasing the number of women in corporate leadership roles — will require creative approaches beyond compliance with goals.
“Let’s be pragmatic,” said Luis Cilimingras, Managing Director, IDEO UK. He said that IDEO was approaching diversity with a very analytical toolkit for eliminating bias in hiring, for example a live feedback tool that allows job candidates to air their feelings after an interview.
There are different ways of reading résumés blindly, blanking out not just the candidate’s name but also the university. An audience member went further, saying, “We jettison the CV and test people on what their skills are.”
This story is drawn from sessions at the Women’s Forum Global Meeting 2017.
