Forcing workers to come into offices five days a week and reversing hybrid work policies, is harming equality for women in senior management an in-depth report has concluded.
Grant Thornton’s 20th annual Women in Business report shows that although the percentage of women in senior management roles in the UK and globally has increased over the past two decades, progress remained disappointingly slow – with parity not likely to be achieved until 2053.
The study found that in the UK, the percentage of women in senior management roles in mid-market organisations has increased from 18% in 2004 to 34% today, with representation improving every year up until 2020, when progress stalled. The UK data is in line with global trends, which follow a similar pattern.
Although some large companies are rowing back on hybrid working, Grant Thornton found that firms with flexible location policies were attracting a more gender-balanced workforce. Businesses that were primarily office-based were the only ones where the percentage of women in senior management roles fell below the average global benchmark, the analysis found. In the UK, those businesses with an office-based workforce had 11% fewer women in senior positions than those with a home-based or flexible model.
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The research confirmed the “dramatic” shift back to office-based working among global mid-market firms in the past 12 months.
Globally, 47% of businesses were now primarily office-based (compared with 36% last year) and 45% were hybrid (53% last year). This is being driven by male CEOs – 50% of businesses with a male CEO are predominantly office-based, compared with 40% of female-led businesses.
Businesses without an inclusion, diversity and environmental, social and governance strategy had just 28% of global senior management roles held by women in comparison with an average of 36% in organisations with such strategies in place. Where there are clear indicators of diversity and inclusion performance being measured, businesses outperformed the global benchmark.
Pathways for change
The report identified three pathways for businesses to accelerate progress towards gender parity in senior management: assigning responsibility for inclusion and diversity to both a C-suite member and a female senior leader; implementing a standalone inclusion/diversity strategy with measurable goals; and offering flexible working arrangements.
The percentage of women in senior management positions was found to increase when a member of the C-suite, of any gender, leads on DEI alongside a senior female leader. When this is the case within an organisation in the UK, the number of senior roles held by women surpasses the UK and global average by 4% and 5% respectively.
Maddie Wollerton-Blanks, people consulting director at Grant Thornton UK, said the position of female leaders was fragile: “Gender pay gap reporting shows us that while there may be some women in senior management positions, there are not enough at that level or mid-management roles.
“This lack of pipeline means that if a senior woman leaves a position, there won’t be any other women coming up to take that role. This makes the situation of female management fragile which is why in businesses with low representation of women at senior levels, it is vital to monitor representation in the pipeline and to invest in measures that will help to support women to stay and progress through to senior levels.”
Lloyds of London progress
Meanwhile, Lloyd’s of London has announced it has achieved a short-term target of women filling 35% of leadership roles. However, only 45% of managing agents and brokers had helped reach the end-of-2023 diversity figure, leading Lloyd’s to state that it needed to do more to alter its culture for the better.
Lloyd’s chief people officer Sara Gomez said: “While we’ve hit our short-term target … and the market continues to make progress on representation of diverse groups, we still have a way to go on our culture journey.”
The organisation, which employs around 57,000 people in insurance and broking firms, is aiming for gender parity by 2030.
Lloyd’s set the end-of-2023 target in 2020 after multiple concerns and cases relating to boorish behaviour, sexual harassment and daytime drinking.
In its fifth Market Policies and Practices report, Lloyd’s said the proportion of women in leadership roles had risen by three percentage points, with improvements at board level, in executive committees and direct reports of executive committees.
Lloyd’s said women made up more than 43% of the 57,000-strong workforce and that 46% of new hires were women in 2023.
Ethnically diverse hires made up 21% of new staff last year, up 4 percentage points, and more than 71% of firms were working to remove bias from recruitment processes. More than half had inclusivity policies and practices, such as menopause support, Lloyd’s said.
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