The COVID-19 has highlighted the existing gender disparity in the global workforce. Women are not only poorly represented across industries, but they are also finding it more difficult to rejoin the workforce than their male colleagues.
Recently, the Women Business Collaborative (WBC) Staffing Council, in partnership with the American Staffing Association, the National Association of Professional Staffing, the Staffing Industry Analysts, and TechServe Alliance announced their surveyOpens a new window findings that closely studied gender diversity and equity within the staffing industry. It revealed that the percentage of women executives there is not really above 20%.
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Here are some interesting observations made by the study.
Not a Fair Balance Between Male and Female Representation
The study shows that though the percentage of women in the workforce has increased over time, the number is still worrisome. The distribution is also not equal.
On one hand, sectors like construction (94% men), installation, maintenance and repair (96.1% men) and architecture and engineering (85.6% men) have the worst female representation.
On the other hand, healthcare has the highest representation of women – a whopping 88.4%! Sectors like personal healthcare and services, and office and administrative support have 78.1% and 74.0% of women, respectively.
A fair balance of these two genders is evidenced only in a few sectors like:
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- Legal (49 men : 56 women)
- Life, physical and social sciences (54 men : 45 women)
- Sales and related areas (51 men : 48 women)
More Imbalance at the Top
When asked about what percentage of the executive team are women, 20% of small companies (with 0-50 employees) said 91-100%, while 26% of big companies (201-500 employees) said 0-10%. Women of color have it worse. 52% of the small companies said 0-10%, while compared to 56% of big companies who reported similar numbers.
When asked about their target for the percentage of women in executive teams in the next two years, 44% of small organizations said they want it unchanged. Meanwhile, 35% of big companies said that they would like to increase it by 5%.
What Changed Under the Female Leadership?
It was observed that under a female CEO, DEI initiatives generally attracted more priority. The study indicated that salaries and employee benefits get more attention when there is a female CEO as compared ton a male counterpart. Also when a woman is leading an organization, the number of female board members is high.
Edie Fraser, CEO at the Women Business Collaborative said that the finding should be viewed as an opportunity to improve the gender gap. “The staffing industry supports the employment of nearly 10 million job workers on an annual basis. By encouraging a more diverse and equitable workforce composition across those businesses supporting this industry, we will by default better represent the workers we employ,†she added.
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In Closing
According to a Forbes researchOpens a new window , organizations with inclusive teams are more likely to make better decisions than those who don’t have that edge. There are also studies showing that diversity of all kinds increases an organization’s productivity and innovation.
An inclusive culture also boosts the morale of employees, which helps the organization in not only attracting talent but also reducing the turnover rate.