De-codifying the Glass Ceiling - Building Gender Balanced Business

The number of women world-wide pursuing professional careers is rising, but that trend is yet to be reflected in the numbers of women holding high-ranking positions within their companies. As women now make up 50-60 percent of university graduates, the future of a corporation’s success hinges on being able to incorporate this new field of talent into even the highest levels of its managerial structure. To that end, global corporations are starting to re-evaluate what it takes to create a corporate culture that can adequately integrate and promote professional women.

•In German companies, women make up an average of 8.5 percent of management at the executive level; across the European Union the number rises to an average of 12 percent.

•Siemens, a multi-national engineering company based in Germany, was among the first of the largest German companies to name a woman to its executive board in 2008.

•Despite the high-profile appointment, Siemens still suffers from imbalances; only 14 percent of managers in the company are women. That percentage dwindles at the highest levels of management, in which women make up just 7 percent of those reporting directly to corporate executives.

•The Siemens situation is a typical one: despite advances for women in the professional world, most women are still affected by the proverbial glass ceiling, seeing their numbers dwindle as a percentage of each successive level of management.

•In response to this promotion-attrition, many EU countries (including Norway, France, the Netherlands and Spain) have begun mandating quotas for numbers of women on the boards of publicly-traded companies.

•Other countries are considering similar legislation, but some shy away from the laws due to worries about stigmatizing women appointed under the laws as “quota hires,” as well as concerns about turning away talented men.

•A study at Deutsche Bank that sought to assess whether or not child-bearing was responsible for impeding the progress of women’s careers showed that only 5 percent of women were out on maternity leave at any one time.

•The study confirmed that it is not child-bearing or -rearing issues that are holding women back, but a lack of mentoring and access to top-brass.

•Corporations that have gone through the traditional attempts to right the gender-imbalanced ship have met with some frustration. Traditional programs such as female networking cocktail parties, or aggressiveness training for female managers, have failed to translate into the advancement of more women.