Over the past few years, more women have been promoted to top management roles and company board positions. Successful women have been complimented and rewarded for their achievements. However, continued progress can be supported by considering the following steps:

Recognize the business case for gender diversity

For businesses, support for gender diversity is a matter of both doing good and doing well. Put simply, companies that hire more women make more money, so gender diversity should be a part of both immediate initiatives and long-term business strategies.

 

Hire women who can hire women

Research has repeatedly shown that when women are better represented in leadership roles, more women are hired across the organization. This holds true even when considering disparities in the size of female talent pools across industries. Female candidates may also be more attracted to companies with higher proportions of leaders who are women, since these companies might have more opportunities for women to advance their careers.

 

Support transparency

A gender gap still exists for the most part when it comes to pay. There are fair questions about whether the gap is solely due to gender. Often, this starts with full transparency about differences in pay levels for similar roles and positions.

 

Continue to evolve

Companies need to continually rethink their business and operational models, and that includes how their employees work and live. For example, companies can count parental leaves as years of service and grant generous sabbaticals for women as well as men. Flexible working hours for employees can help them balance work with obligations at home.

 

 

The article “Steps that companies can consider to narrow the gender gap” by Paul Harnick, KPMG in the UK, was taken from KPMG’s publication entitled Reaction: Chemicals Magazine.