Workplace Diversity 2010

Bringing diversity to the workplace in 2010?

Authored by Karl Simpson, Liftstream Ltd – March 8^th 2010

If the recent economic tsunami has taught us anything about the modern economy, it is that it is now truly global. The financial mechanisms and monetary policy needed to bring stability to our domestic markets had to be globally coordinated. Countries such as China and other emerging markets carried on their robust economic performance relatively unabated, helping others come through the downturn, while the remainder continue to navigate their way out.

Consequently, it is from here that we should once again pick up the argument for diversity in our corporate organisations. It seems totally ridiculous that, as yet another decade ticks by, the sophisticated thinking that goes into managing the world’s most important industries has not be able to resolve the diversity problem.

In 2005, I wrote an article for the Pharmaceutical Executive Europe magazine about the need for diversity to be more about the principle of opening our minds to the contributions made by people of different ethnicity, gender, culture, disability or a combination of all. Diversity in recruiting should not simply be about targets and opening our doors. The true benefit comes more from the inherited intellectual and experiential enriching. But as we hobble away from 2009, towards the more optimistic horizon of 2010 and beyond, the debate continues to rage about how to eliminate prejudice and improve diversity.

This is not to say that no progress has been made, it has. Companies now articulate very positive messages about their commitments in this direction. Some have moved to instigate procedures to improve these diversity figures, where others now have dedicated people in their human resource functions to manage these activities proactively.

Yet progress is glacially slow, and there are reasons.

“The bottleneck is at the top of the bottle”

“Where are you likely to find people with the least diversity of experience, the largest investment in the past, and the greatest reverence for industry dogma?”

“At the top!” – Gary Hamel – Harvard Business Review

Firstly we must recognise that companies are led. It is the executive management that drives the changes in a company. A company’s culture is not easily changed or even transformed, but it is the role of the executive management to map out the direction, the values and behaviours from which all employees take their lead. Swathes of management literature have been written about the role of executive leadership and how a company’s cultural behaviours are correlated to those of the bosses.

When we look at this in the context of diversity recruitment, it is not difficult to draw the conclusion that the managerial diversity is insufficiently rich to encourage the same diversity across the business.

Where this remains most evident is in gender equality and so it seems logical to jump immediately here to the role women play in executive leadership and board-level roles. Women have been pushing for workplace equality for a very long time and it therefore represents an interesting examination of the rate of change. According to the European Professional Women’s Network, of 5,146 board seats, the number of seats held by women grew from just 8% in 2004 to 9.7% in 2008; further evidence of the slow rate of change.

We have to acknowledge that culture plays a key role in the professional progression of women. However positive we are about promoting women to positions of seniority within our organisations, these are not prescriptive beliefs that can be handed out around the globe with an expectation that others will follow. In certain parts of the world, such as Japan, China or the Middle East, the cultural atmosphere will inhibit this gender equality and it will take courageous leadership to realign these beliefs. In the western developed economies, we are mostly able to make advances towards equality at all levels but it seems that too often it falls to women to push themselves in this argument and insufficient initiative comes from male business leaders.

The fact remains that women, owing to deep rooted social beliefs, are more maternally inclined to want to care for their children and, to some extent, their ageing parents. This puts them at a professional disadvantage to those that remain in the working system based on the common practices of assessing experience and job suitability. It prompts the question as to whether a more socially conscious society can redress this balance in the home and thereby provide a greater chance of equality at work. Or is it the case that these social values and genetic inclinations are only likely to change with the passing of generations.

It is worth contemplating this notion in the context of ethnic equality. In many cases the ethnic diversity in organisations is more positively represented than that of gender. The genetic hard-wiring that is shared by a sex seems to transcend race, more so than same-race transcends gender.

It is widely accepted that the volume of women entering the workplace after school, college or university is roughly equal to that of men. The imbalance begins as you look up the corporate structure. The evidence is that some 70% of senior managers, 80% of executives and at least 90% of board-level appointees are male. Implicit in this is that women are lost from the working environment as they progress in experience. There are many possible reasons for this. Some centre on the maternalistic issues cited earlier, others are social welfare mechanisms that are inappropriately structured to allow women to work and care for their families. But there remains a large problem with gender prejudice that we must collectively eradicate.

What is alarming still is the amount of effort that has to go into raising people’s consciousness about discrimination. This constant drive towards bringing awareness to issues of discrimination has to be renewed with each generation, instead of a progression of the social values that would allow us all to begin to adhere to the codes of acceptable tolerance and open-mindedness towards diversity.

This pestilential social problem is more severe in certain countries than others. In Scandinavia, Norway leads the field as the only country to peak above 40% of female board members. Its neighbouring countries also score well but fall short of 30%. Denmark, in fourth place, fails to peak above 20% and it declines progressively from there; statistics that fail to inspire confidence in European businesses’ attitudes to the contribution women can make.

It is quite often difficult to pass comment on the subject of diversity without perhaps inferring that those that run business are in some way presiding over a culture of mendacious duplicity or are inculcating a discriminatory purpose. The truth is that despicable acts of discrimination are rare and most gender discrimination is not done surreptitiously. Yet, until we create an open environment where these discussions can occur unreservedly, and a culture of challenging decisions flourishes, it becomes difficult to institute change towards greater equality. 

Few believe that women should be promoted to make up a quota. Success and progression have to be meritocratic and this should be true for women as much as men. The moment that companies promote mediocre performers who lack ambition or a competitive mentality in order to simply meet a target for diversity, the whole value system is broken. It has to be led by achievement and by a fair and equal assessment of candidates. But where we need to change our mindset is in how someone is assessed. If women are leaving the workplace to have children, then we need to look at different ways of assessing the contribution they can make when they re-enter the work system. This new approach needs to be coupled with creative frameworks that will allow flexibility, logistical convenience and re-introduction programmes that ensure high performers can be recruited and retained in the most productive way possible and have equal chance of kicking-on into executive positions. 

Ultimately this comes back to the fact that businesses, large and small, sell their products and services to societies that are diverse and often gender balanced. Their opportunity is to maximise their potential in these markets by having influential women, in equal measure, at every level of their company so they reflect their markets and can understand how to connect with them. Once it becomes evident that it is commercially advantageous, we might see a natural gravitation towards a balanced and fair gender-equal workplace. ●

Given that there is so much empty rhetoric that commonly crowds out actionable steps that could move us forward, here is a short list of canvassed opinions on things that you could do instantly to improve the gender equality in your organisation:

• Look at each recruited position. Is it as attractive to female applicants as it is to male? If not, why not and what can be changed.
• Succession plans must include women, preferably in equal numbers and certainly of equal quality.
• How could your business be more flexible to accommodate women? Hours, location, and travel - all of these have technological solutions that could make your organisation more retentive of women or attractive to them.
• Engender the gender agenda – make sure your male employees understand the value to your business of having gender equality at all levels of the board. Appoint male ‘Champions’ who can promote the benefits. It is likely to carry more weight coming from people who are not allied to HR compliance.
• Where can you introduce metrics to measure the company’s performance in this area?
• Encourage your board to publish gender employment statistics in the quarterly or annual reports. Display the relationship between gender equality and performance.
• Could your company publish the total salaries of the male employee base alongside the total of female salaries?
• Plan more effective means for women to get back into the workplace after leaving for childcare.
• Is assessing people’s credentials on number of years’ constant employment the most appropriate for the roles you’re looking to fill.
• Develop career plans for women that will see them go into areas that have historically been largely serves by male employees.

Do something for your organisation during International Women’s Day – March 8^th 2010.  http://www.internationalwomensday.com

Also, if you’d like to nominate someone for the Top 50 Women Executives in the Pharmaceuticals industry, visit our twitter site @liftstream and nominate followed by #50pharmawomen