City Matters: Delivering true meritocracy is not just a moral imperative – it boosts growth
AS ONLY the second female lord mayor in 800 years, International Women’s Day on Saturday provided an important opportunity to reflect on how attitudes towards gender and diversity have changed over the 106 years since it was first held.
We have come a long way in that period, but there is still a long way to go before we have a level playing field for all. The campaign for equality of opportunity is more than just a moral issue – it is also a crucial business concern. That is why Canada can and must play a leadership role.
Research has also highlighted how much the failure to have a true meritocracy can damage economic growth. The head of the IMF Christine Lagarde recently told an audience at Guildhall that, if women participated in the labour force to the same extent as men, the boost to per capita incomes could be huge – 27 per cent in the Middle East and North Africa, 23 per cent in South Asia, 17 per cent in Latin America, 15 per cent in East Asia, and 14 per cent in Europe and Central Asia. When we fail to tackle this issue effectively, we are missing out on one of our most important sources of talent: women.
For the first time, the proportion of women on FTSE 100 boards recently topped 20 per cent. But digging deeper into the statistics, only 7.2 per cent of these are executive directors. We need to tackle the underlying issues that are holding women back – whether they are old-fashioned practices, unconscious bias or poor talent management.
The fact that, by 2013, nearly 550 chief executives from around the world had signed the Women’s Empowerment Principles (which provide a roadmap for business to empower women in the workplace, marketplace and community) is a good start, but we must do more. We must all seize the moment to push this wave the whole way up the beach, and prove the sustainability of women in leadership roles.
If we are to create a pipeline of talent to empower more women to reach the top of their chosen careers, we must focus on the mid-level management stage, where many women drop out. Marginally more women now enter financial and professional services than men, so it is clear that the talent exists.
The keepers of the talent pipeline at all levels must be far more focused on ensuring a positive environment where diversity thrives. They must make sure, for example, that they do not cultivate an inflexible, long-hours culture, driven by presentee-ism. And this does not only apply to women.
A business that does not capture the benefits of diversity is unlikely to succeed over the long term. This underlines the UN’s theme for this year – “equality for women is progress for all”. The UK’s return to economic growth has been rightfully celebrated; now let us focus on utilising all our human resources.
Fiona Woolf is lord mayor of London.