Changes in employment practices driven by the pandemic have brought only slight progress for women in management positions, according to recent data from Grant Thornton's International Business Report 2023 (IBR) on women entrepreneurs in the global marketplace. Unless companies develop cultures that empower people through flexible ways of working and take additional steps to support women in senior management positions, only 34% of senior management positions in mid-market companies world will be occupied by women in 2025.
“The 30% club is just not good enough anymore,” says Karitha Ericson, Global Leader of Culture and Networking at Grant Thornton International and lead on the global initiative to increase the proportion of women in senior leadership roles. “Businesses must take intentional steps to accelerate progress and strive to have 40% of senior leadership positions held by women by 2025 so they can reap the benefits of greater diversity and achieve parity by 2030.”
Additionally, a significant boost to the number of women in leadership roles will come from more companies committing to flexible working and developing the right organizational culture to support it. Grant Thornton's research has revealed that flex, hybrid, and home-based models have the highest levels of women in leadership positions. In medium-sized companies that have adopted a hybrid way of working, 34% of senior managers are women, while in fully flexible companies, in which staff choose how they work, the percentage is 36%. Only 29% of senior managers are women in medium-sized companies with predominantly office-based models.
Amid a global skills shortage and talent crisis, companies that embrace flexible working can also reap the benefits of better cross-border work and access to a larger pool of talent, such as people with disabilities, those living in geographically remote locations or those looking for a better work-life balance.
“Going back to the office is, on the one hand, a challenge for organizations that have to format that return (under what conditions, when, how much) and that is different by industry. But at the same time, it is an opportunity to find moments of exchange that benefit companies and their collaborators”, says Matiana Behrends, Director of Human Capital Services at Grant Thornton Argentina.
Some good results at the regional level support the general increase of women in senior leadership positions. All regions surpassed the figure of 30% of women in senior management for the first time. Latin America rose 2 percentage points, from 35% to 37%, while the performance of the European Union held steady at 33%.
This year, in Argentina the proportion of women senior leaders is 29%, one percentage point less than in 2022. This number places us in 25th place out of the 28 countries in which the IBR was carried out.
Of the companies surveyed, 18% do not have women in senior leadership positions and 18.8% only have one woman in this type of role.
Regarding the area in which women work in senior leadership positions in Argentina, in 2023, 53% of the companies surveyed have human resources directors, 45% have female CFOs, and 38% also have CEOs or Directors. General, 36% have marketing directors (CMOs), 29% have operations directors (COOs), 18% have sales directors, 14% have information directors (CIOs), 11% have controllers of quality and 8% have female members.
External pressures around environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors demand the creation of new strategies, including a determined push towards more women in senior leadership. The establishment of global ESG standards and regulations is putting pressure on companies to build diverse leadership teams. If you can't demonstrate diversity, a company may have a hard time raising capital.
“Despite the fact that the private sector has been promoting issues of diversity among its teams and greater transparency in its management, we still have a long way to go, but without a doubt, women play a necessary role in promoting ESG criteria. Diversity is essential to achieve sustainability in business and will help to face the new challenges posed by ESGs”, concludes Patricia Terraza, Senior Manager of Advisory Services and Sustainability lead at Grant Thornton Argentina.
Grant Thornton's International Business Report (IBR) is the world's leading survey of midsize businesses. Launched in 1992 in nine European countries, our research now interviews around 10,000 senior executives in more than 140 economies each year, providing insights into health and issues affecting both private and publicly traded companies. More information here.
For 19 years, Grant Thornton has shed light on issues related to gender diversity in senior management among the world's midmarket companies, exposing barriers and identifying actions for change. More information here.
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