Big companies in UK make gender diversity a priority

Gender diversity is fast becoming a business priority in the UK, with large businesses taking measures to recruit and nurture more female employees in senior positions.

Armstrong Craven, a talent mapping and pipelining company that operates globally, has stated that recent research conducted by a UK university shows that less than 6 per cent of women have made it to the top post of executive director. The company also points out that the research found that just 5.6 per cent of executive directors in FTSE250 companies are female. Armstrong Craven believes that these figures indicate that organisations and businesses still need to work harder to ensure that more women occupy senior and top positions.

Increase

Armstrong Craven Deputy CEO, Rachel Davis, claimed that companies have always taken gender diversity seriously. This is revealed from 2015 figures that show that 25 per cent of women had made it to the board of FTSE100 companies. This, she stated, is an increase of 12.5 per cent compared to 2011.

Davis emphasised that the figures do not provide an accurate picture of gender diversity in organisations since many female employees end up in non-executive roles. Also, she pointed out that the same woman can hold positions in the boards of different companies.

External talent

Davis said that companies looking to add more women in senior positions should first identify and nurture in-house talent. This move should be complemented by sourcing external talent via talent mapping and pipelining.

While figures show that executive female board members are quite low, there are lots of talented businesswomen in successful organisations who either have not been identified or have not been mentored properly.