Every year on August 26, the world joins the US in marking the Women’s Equality Day, which was designated by the Congress in 1971 to commemorate the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote.
Half a century on, the Women’s Equality Day is calling attention to continuing efforts towards gender equality.
Achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls by 2030 is goal number 5 of the 17 SDGs. The reality, though, is that gender parity remains far off the mark. According to the UN, representation of women in parliaments across the world sits at 25.6 per cent, 36.3 per cent in local governments and 28.2 per cent in managerial positions.
The picture is no different on the corporate front.
In 2019, a survey was conducted by Equileap — leading provider of data and insights on gender equality in the workplace — on the 61 companies listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
The survey ranked the companies based on their performance on gender equality, with the highest score being 63 per cent and three per cent at the lowest. The average score stood at 26 per cent, just a percentage point lower to the Canadian companies’ average score of 27 per cent.
It was, however, encouraging to see the mix of companies across different sectors making it to the top 20 position, including Standard Chartered Bank Kenya, which was top, Safaricom, EABL, Kenya Airways, KenGen, Total Kenya, BAT Kenya and the NSE.
A company like BAT Kenya, for example, has a robust diversity and inclusion strategy that is a key driver of its transformation journey and has set an ambitious target to achieve 50 per cent gender balance across the business by 2025.
The survey further showed women account for 23 per cent of board members, having nearly doubled since 2012, according to a similar survey by the Kenya Institute of Management.
This clearly shows there is lots of headroom for improvement in the inclusion of women in corporate leadership. A company like BAT Kenya, for example, has a robust diversity and inclusion strategy that is a key driver of its transformation journey and has set an ambitious target to achieve 50 per cent gender balance across the business by 2025. Currently, women represent approximately 40 per cent of the total population and 36 per cent at the board level.
Diverse teams that are representative of the world we live in are key to building high-performing teams. The question that begs, though, is what practical steps companies can take to bridge the gender gap.
The first step is to take deliberate policy actions that facilitate gender balance in the recruitment and retention of talent. The work environment also needs to be strategically designed in such a way that addresses the unique needs of women at the workplace. This calls for investment in facilities such as nursing rooms for new mothers and initiatives such as flexi-hours.
It is also crucial for companies to continuously monitor pay gaps to ensure there are no discrepancies or any type of bias within any group of employees – including gender. BAT Kenya has published a gender pay gap report in its annual report for the last two years.
Mentorship and training should also be considered for young career women looking to grow into leadership. Recently, BAT Kenya spearheaded the launch of the Women in BAT Network in the East African Markets. The network is a self-governed network that supports the empowerment and development of women to reach their individual unique and diverse potential.
To be clear, driving gender parity is not about setting quotas. Organisations need to initiate opportunities for open and honest dialogue to challenge established views and promote alternative ideas and new perspectives. One such action is to provide training on contemporary issues such as unconscious bias. Such training can address how bias can impact recruitment, right through to salary conversations and progression opportunities.
As the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day aptly puts it, it is time to choose to challenge. Call out gender bias and inequality for what it is and take deliberate action to address it.
Therefore, let’s challenge ourselves and be inspired by various milestones achieved towards gender parity, Individually and collectively. In so doing, we can build an inclusive world and build a better tomorrow for generations to come.
The writer is the director of External Affairs at BAT Kenya and East Africa
