International Women’s Day
For International Women’s Day, prepare to
see a lot of hashtags and statements around #EmbraceEquity and how gender
equity is a must for the future. But when you look at what companies are actually doing, it can tell a different story. Actions can reveal strategy better than any
slogan or tweet.
International Women’s Day (IWD) is a global
day celebrating the achievements of women – whether it be social, economic,
cultural, or political.
But it also marks a call to action for
accelerating gender parity and is a chance not only to celebrate, but also
educate and raise awareness, call for positive change, and lobby for gender
parity.
Gender equity is one of the most
significant metrics we address at SocialMarks.
Let’s look at the data. According to
SocialMarks:
- Of Dow Jones Index companies, 70% of companies have less than 50% females in the company and 47% of the DJI have less than 40% females in the company.
- Within the DJI, just 17% of companies have more than 40% of women in their upper pay quartile (>75 percentile).
There is also clear disparity between sectors.
The Communications Sector is one of our strongest performers for gender at
SocialMarks.
On average in the Communications Sector,
there are…
- 39% women overall in a company.
- 25% women in the upper pay quartile (>75 percentile).
- 31% women in senior management.
Comparatively, on average in the Technology
Sector, there are just…
- 28% women overall in a company.
- 14% women in the upper pay quartile (>75 percentile).
- 14% women in senior management.
These figures highlight a clear discrepancy
in the gender breakdown within sectors. And it shows that historically
male-dominated sectors, like tech, still have a long way to go.
More positively, let’s look at the
best-in-class gender focused programs in the SocialMarks analysis. In the
Communications Sector, Cisco Systems has some fantastic programs which support
the professional development of women. For example, the DARE program addresses
the professional needs of early-in-career women at Cisco by providing
exercises, activities, and tools to help women articulate their value to the
business, build a community of support, and empower each other to create bold
career visions. Participants of the program were 1.2 times more likely to be
promoted. Their JUMP program is for midlevel women to close the gender gap in
leadership and develop and retain talent. JUMP participants are 1.4 times more
likely than nonparticipants to get promoted.
So, on International Women’s Day, this is
our call for positive change. We recognise that there is urgent work to do –
and that starts now.
SocialMarks can be part of the solution as
we can help you to identify areas where training, programs and policies can
make the biggest impact in gender parity and equity. SocialMarks can help you
identify where the biggest gaps are in your gender parity data and help you to
address these.
