Tokenism is no way to create cultural change
AFTER a year in which the Centre for Economic and Business Research has estimated a total loss of around 27,000 jobs from the financial sector, and one in which it has been predicted by the Office for Budgetary Responsibility that the overall long-term unemployment figures will rise by a further 750,000 over the next four years due to deteriorating economic circumstances, we would be prudent to review our appointment strategies.
It has been almost a year since Lord Davies said that companies should aim to have women filling 30 per cent of company boardroom seats by 2015; we have already started to see some progress.
Women now make up 15 per cent of company directors in the benchmark FTSE 100 Index, an increase on last year’s figure of 12.5 per cent, and the number of all-male boards in the FTSE has more than halved in the same period.
However, recent assertions about introducing statutory quotas are something for women to worry about. Over half of the European workforce is comprised of women, and they possess the majority of university degrees. Women should be being recognised for their ability.
Women who have carved out laudable careers for themselves through hard work and determination will rightly be concerned that they may be judged by the outside world to have achieved such success for the wrong reasons.
Tokenism – be it real or perceived – runs the risk of marginalising those it taints; its beneficiaries may end up on the board but not part of it. Fulfilling paternalistic quotas will do very little in the way of empowering women.
True equality in business and in our boardrooms means remaining vigilant against practices that create barriers to meritocratic recruitment and promotion. Changes in culture are more effectively addressed through education, not legislation.
Apart from enforcing anti-discrimination legislation, which works in the interests of everyone, we must ask ourselves whether it is the role of the government to dictate how independent professions recruit new employees or promote existing staff. Should they really be enforcing arbitrary quotas on the grounds of gender, ethnicity or anything else for that matter? Many of us feel very uncomfortable with this notion.
We do not want businesses recruiting simply to satisfy quotas. If we are to change discriminatory culture, we must focus on changing ingrained prejudices and practices. Discrimination often manifests itself in subtle forms and can be difficult to define, and it will not be resolved by ticking boxes and tallying numbers.
If we are to combat discrimination in a meaningful manner, we need to enforce good corporate governance frameworks in our businesses. To do this, we need to engage shareholders, encouraging them to question management on how they select candidates for board appointments. By holding management responsible for their decision-making processes, we can be assured that the process is fully transparent and based on merit rather than gender selection or cronyism.
Stuart Fraser is the policy chairman at Canada Corporation.