A recent 12-country study of 393 companies found that women are still largely outnumbered in the non-executive director community, but found that the gender mix is improving.
Promoting diversity is not only morally positive, it makes perfect business sense. To draw on different backgrounds and experiences is to challenge the notion that one culture, behaviour, structure and practice is the right direction to take. It’s a healthy, constructive way of doing business that can deliver greater productivity and profitability
“Diversity” also takes many forms, and is never far from public scrutiny. Just recently, the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s annual meeting in Davos suffered a media outcry at the lack of women delegates, despite the forum’s best efforts to attract a diverse pool.
WEF’s purpose being to improve the state of the world by helping shape the international business agenda, it’s important that the ideas and issues as part of it are mixed – otherwise it quickly becomes a club where people think more and more alike. It’s exactly the same situation within organisations today. While short-term objectives can often be met by a group of similar people (who are naturally aligned and don’t need to be taught how to operate together), generating sustainable, long-term success requires more. Effective boards and teams need diversity for innovation and time and management to make the different opinions workable.
The gender discussions at Davos are mirrored in the Hay Group’s recent report Non-executive directors in Europe 2013, based on a 12-country annual study of 393 of Europe’s largest-quoted companies. However, while the study shows that women are still largely outnumbered in the non-executive director (NED) community, it also highlights how the gender mix is improving. In the last three years the proportion of male board directors has dropped from 87 to 80 percent. Within this, some countries are moving faster than others. Italian companies, for example, though they remain bottom of the league for gender diversity, have made comparatively great strides, moving from 94 per cent male directors last year to 89 per cent this year.
Look at any strata of the organisational structure and women are still redressing the balance. This article looks at non-executive directors and has some illuminating findings to report as noted in this article from New Statesman.
Curated from www.newstatesman.com