Gender Parity at the Workplace: Findings by Bain & Co

“We want to bring in more diversity on campus, with fewer engineers and more women” said the Admissions Chair, IIM Lucknow in one of his latest interviews. The prospective increase in percentage of women on campus has created a buzz, not only in terms of hostel expansions and allocation but has also led to a series of rumors on the exact number. The number quoted around the campus grapevine, informally, keeps increasing every day, from the modest 75 to a whopping 120 (out of 400+ students) as compared to the current batch which has just about 50 girls (out of 370).

This new development is very promising as compared to the last decade, where women were mostly not even considered for corporate jobs. Times are certainly better now, but it’s not as if much has changed. Fact remains that only 3% of the top CEOs in the Fortune 500 companies are women!

When the most dreaded question of any MBA admission interview is asked, “Why MBA?”, the most frequent answer encountered is speedy career progression with an aspiration for senior leadership roles and greater responsibilities. It is interesting to note that at the junior level, the number of men and women entering the industry are almost the same. However one can’t help but wonder why there is such a sharp decrease in number of women who successfully move up the corporate ladder! Why are women unable to achieve the career goals that they started out with? Is it a perception mis-match? A study by Bain & Co in 2010 provided insights regarding general trends in the top multinational corporations with respect to perceptions of both men and women.

The study reports that 80% of the women believed that achieving gender parity should be a critical business imperative as compared to only 48% of the men. Sixty six percent of the men reported that they believed women share equal opportunities to be promoted for leadership positions and alarmingly only 30% women felt the same, indicating a sharp perception gap in the status of gender parity. One aspect that both men and women agreed upon was that although there exist no gender disparity during recruitment for junior positions, there existed a significant disparity while considering promotion to senior executive roles. How exactly does this play out?

Mitali, a Junior Manager at an MNC, says “I feel that my work environment is more man-friendly”. “I think women are more passionate when it comes to work; it is like my work defines me.” She further adds, “The HR initiatives in my company are just not flexible enough”. The Bain and Co. study sends this strong message to the business leaders that majority of their employees do not see the current initiatives, such as flexi timings aimed at helping achieving gender parity, as successful. Women in secure jobs have changed to a similar post in another company only because their company’s policies did not allow them the sort of environment they needed.

The proverbial glass ceiling phenomenon has been well documented at the workplace, and it is a fact that a woman has to work much harder than a man in the same work team to gain the same amount of recognition. But this glass ceiling has given way in many organizations, and the important factor to consider should be “Is work place culture adaptable enough to retain women employees?”

Another reason for lesser number of women in the higher echelons is the issue of work-family imbalance. Not only is the woman considered to be the caregiver in a family, the Bain report also shows that more number of women are ready to relocate for their spouse’s job transfers, or choose to work from home as compared to men. Women are also more likely to take a flexible career path, and three times more likely to work part time. Company initiatives in such a case can be very helpful in retention of their women employees by allowing for part time or work from home for a period of time. But the Bain survey results revealed that the employees were dissatisfied with their organization’s insensitivity to the progression of male and female career paths. More than three-quarters of the respondents said that their company had implemented gender-parity initiatives such as flex-work programs and mentorship but mostly felt that these programs were not effective.

It would also be interesting to note, that the number of female entrepreneurs increased by 15% from last year. This could possibly be a fallout of company initiatives failing to provide women with a suitable work environment or perhaps another dimension of change in the world of business. Further studies would  give us the insight to that.

All things considered, admitting more female students in MBA colleges is a positive first step that could help open up a plethora of opportunities for women. In the end the success of any such policy would depend on the organization these women are hired into. A lot of companies of course, do have very competitive gender equality recruitment policies where they make a conscious effort to select a healthy ratio of male to female employees. The success of an organization depends on the growth that it offers to the women employees. The way forward for any company would be to have less rigid promotion processes, and career paths, and also actively promote and de-stigmatize flexible career arcs within the organization – so that the employees flourish and grow in stop and start careers.

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