Cracked, but not yet broken

More women in corporate leadership roles is better for industry and government alike. While its still a long way off from equal representation, it is good to see the numbers climbing… albeit slowly. So, what are the reasons for these small cracks appearing in the tempered glass ceiling?

Sapience Analytics
Updated: Sep 24, 2015 06:24:29 PM UTC
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Organizations today are also realizing that for better succession planning they have to change and expand their talent pool to maintain their competitive advantage

Image: Shutterstock

Over the past few years we have seen a fair number of Fortune 500 companies appoint women in leadership roles. Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, Indira Nooyi of Pepsico, Mary Barra of General Motors and in India, Arundhati Bhattacharya of State Bank of India and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon are some shining examples of women who have managed to make their place in the proverbial C-suite boys club. The recently published Lord Davis’s report shows that the representation of women in FTSE 100 board today stands at 23.5 percent. It is encouraging to see that this number has doubled over the past four years and that the persistence of women to reach the top income group seems to be taking effect. We could expect to see a similar upward trend in India too now that the government has mandated women representation on the boards of public companies.

Even industries such as manufacturing and technology hardware are making an effort to hire more women in their workforce. A LinkedIn study revealed that the number of women hires in these industry segments had increased from 9 percent to 12 percent in 2013. Women representation in the software industry stands at 23 percent. While this is a long way off from equal representation, it is good to see the numbers climbing… albeit slowly.

So, what are the reasons for these small cracks appearing in the tempered glass ceiling? Today most forward-thinking organisations across the globe have realised that there is a latent talent pool of a capable and trained workforce that is hopelessly underutilised. Since the demand for skilled employees is on an increase, it only makes sense to tap into this skilled resource pool that is readily available.

Research by Catalyst, an NPO focussed on expanding opportunities for women, also establishes quite conclusively that gender diversity across the corporate board and leadership roles impacts the financial performance of the company positively and also increases innovation and group performance. Organisations today are also realising that for better succession planning they have to change and expand their talent pool to maintain their competitive advantage.

Women often face their biggest career challenge when they choose to have kids. As it happens, this often occurs around the same time as an upward move in a woman’s career trajectory. However, due to lack of a sustainable infrastructure both at home and work front, many women leave the workforce to concentrate on family. Thankfully, a number of organisations are becoming more conscious of the importance of work-life balance and are gradually becoming more open towards providing flexible working solutions for such employees. Aiding them in this endeavor is the rise of technologies like telepresence, the cloud and enterprise mobility which make flexible working options feasible not only for geographically diverse virtual teams but also for the home-based knowledge worker. A worldwide study by Citrix that included India found that telecommuters were 11 to 20 percent more productive than their counterparts who work in the office since they often put in more than 40 hours a week. Along with this, over 90 percent of managers believed that employees were more productive when they could juggle how and when they work. This increasing acceptance of telecommuting and workplace flexibility is giving women the option to focus on their careers without compromising on work-life balance by giving them more control over their time.

Governments across the globe too are concerned about the gender diversity problem and are working towards implementing legislations that can fix the sex ratio across workplaces and boardrooms. Evidence close to home is available in the change in the Indian laws mentioned earlier. Governments have also realised that women’s economic progress also benefits a country’s GDP. Several studies have arrived at this conclusion—typical is a Catalyst report drawn from several global organisations and sources that puts the potential gain to India’s GDP by increasing female employment as high as 27percent.

There also has been a significant shift in the cultural norms which so far may have held back the growth of women in the corporate sector. Until sometime back, the onus of staying connected at the home front and bearing the responsibility of the children rested solely upon women. This is slowly changing as men are becoming more willing to assume the role of primary caregivers and sharing household responsibilities.

Some companies such as KPMG have taken the issue of gender inequality in the workplace very seriously: Of the 51 new partners and executive directors in the firm this year, 19 are reported to be women. Two of the women were promoted while on or about to take maternity leave. This proves that forward-thinking organisations can tailor career opportunities and ambitions around women having family duties. While we still are a long way from breaking the glass ceiling, anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that cracks have begun to appear. We can take hope in the fact that today, in order to balance home and work, women don’t have to quit high profile jobs, make their careers take a back seat or change their line of work completely. At some level, a greater number of women entering the workforce are gearing up to shatter the glass ceiling and claim their rightful place in the ranks of the C-Suite elite.

- By Swati Deodhar – Founder Sapience Analytics

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.

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