Companies commitment to gender diversity and equality is all time high, but the statistics reflect that a lot of ground work is still to be done. The shrinking women executive pipeline leads to a very less number of women making it to the C-level. As per a joint study in 2016 by LeanIn.org and Mckinsey, globally 46% women hold professional level jobs, but only 19% of them make it to the C-suite.
And if you are thinking work-family commitments as the leading cause for this, the same study points that both men and women cite it as the primary reason why they won’t make it to the top level followed by office politics.
These numbers are no surprise, that is why we have days like international women day to boost gender equality. But then why it is so important to have gender diversity, we have been doing well why now so much emphasis on it.
Oh man, so let me tell you there have been numerous studies which highlight benefits of having women leaders and work companions. Not to forget that modern ideas of transformative leadership are more in line with qualities women share: empathy, inclusiveness, and an open negotiation style. They bring diversity in thought which their male counterparts might be missing.
Positive impact on policies, rules, and regulations due to the representation of the other gender. Research point that the interest of children, women, and families are more likely to be taken in account by women. Imagine a world of equal laws.
As the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has noted, “Women typically invest a higher proportion of their earnings in their families and communities than men.” USAID, meanwhile, says that when “10% more girls go to school, a country’s GDP increases on average by 3%.” Not just developing countries but developed countries also seem to benefit, in 2014 Goldman Sachs argued that Japan could boost its absolute GDP by 12.5% if female workforce participation rose to match that as men.
Encouraging more women workforce will enable companies to cultivate and benefit from fresh, raw and untapped talent potential.
After these strong and concrete arguments, we rest our case here. It is the time when organizations should stop just talking and start practicing gender diversity, equality and weed out biasedness.
US Tech Solutions is committed to diversity and embrace diversity in the culture of our organization, our approach to business and the opportunities we provide to our partners. It is because of the same reason 51% of our internal workforce is women with 47% in top leadership roles. Just simply having these numbers doesn’t change anything it the way we treat our lovely ladies with equality.
Breaking the traditional norms have been certainly beneficial for us and will be for everyone who embraces the power of women.
Happy International Women’s Day.