I heard a joke the other day, it goes something like this, “How many women does it take to change a light bulb in an Australian boardroom? Nobody knows because they’re usually not at the table.”
It’s a facetious start to what is a serious topic and while there has been some incremental growth in numbers the fact is, female leadership in corporate Australia is moving at a glacial pace. A 2014 report from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency showed that women account for 18.5% in the boardroom and 6.3% chairwomen.
It’s an interesting conundrum, one that has become a hot topic at conferences and executive lunches. There’s been much hand-wringing over this issue as business leaders sip their Pinot Grigio and mull over it while tucking into their crispy skin salmon on a bed of steamed bok choy.
Recently ANZ Chief, Mike Smith told the Sydney Morning Herald, “Gender should be treated like any other critical business issue.” Really? What honestly does that mean?
Mike Smith is a great example of the attitude coming out of corporate Australia. Too much lip service with very little action and not many checks and balances. Many CEOs say they want to improve the number of women in high-level management at their organisations, but they either fail to do so or show very little results. Most ASX listed companies have diversity policies but they are average in enacting them.
There really is no excuse. Australia has plenty of highly educated women in business who are as capable as their male counter-parts. According to the 2014 Global Gender Report from the World Economic Forum Australia was ranked 24th out of 142 nations.
However, when you consider back in 2006 Australia was ranked 15th it’s not really anything to be proud of, particularly when the report shows the number of women enrolled in tertiary education is 1.38 % higher than men. So what’s going on? Surely they’re not all graduating and having babies? I know I didn’t and I know I’m not alone.
Plenty of women are putting their hands up or “leaning in” as Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg has instructed us to do. But is this really working? No. As Anne Summers wrote in ‘The End of Equality’, “We are told to be patient, that more and more women are in the pipeline, that it’s just a matter of time. This is simply not true and it is time women in business stopped buying it.” Dr Summers’ book was written in 2003 and unfortunately little has changed in the the 12 years since.
There are the rare companies such as Westpac that have successfully raised the levels of women in leadership through targets. They also introduce innovative initiatives such as Westpac’s Equilibrium program which aim to attract women at a management level from other industries to their workforce. Until recently Gail Kelly was the bank’s CEO.
Coincidence?
It’s pretty obvious for most organisations that until there is an economic imperative and I mean a life threatening scenario around a company where it’s time to sink or swim that there will be little movement on this.
The idea that more women at the top equals a boost to the bottom-line doesn’t really resonate when a company is already reporting record profits. But if that same company is facing bankruptcy and the solution is to have more women at the helm because their management style will curb losses well then maybe we would see some action. Kind of like when Prime Minister Tony Abbott elevated Sussan Ley to Minister for Health but only after her predecessor Peter Dutton had made a mighty big mess for her to clean up.
So that brings us to the wrestling match of quotas vs meritocracy and of course as we know at the moment meritocracy is winning the rounds. But when it’s obvious that a meritocracy isn’t necessarily effective why continue with it?
I’m not into strong-arming organisations into changing their ways. But doesn’t it make sense to try something different? Isn’t it time? Aren’t there cases that when you lead a horse to water you have to make it drink, for its own good?
Fear seems to be the driving force here. But what’s so scary? Ok maybe fear of the unknown, fear about how quotas would be implemented and also perhaps the fear that many women would question whether their promotion is tokenistic or on merit.
But can you seriously tell me this is reason enough not to take a decisive stance on a such an important issue? If there is concern that it may not work let’s calm those concerns by introducing a policy with a sunset clause. Then if quotas turnout not to be the answer we could go back to a “merit” based system.
But the evidence shows that quotas can work. In Europe where quotas have been introduced diversity at the boardroom level has increased to 40%.
Here in Australia we have seen through the 1994 implementation of Affirmative Action within the Labor Party that there has been an increase to 36% in elected female MPs in 2013 while the LNP which operates as a meritocracy is at 21%.
Interestingly Treasurer Joe Hockey was on the same page as former Governor General Quentin Bryce back in 2011 when they both publicly supported quotas.
It’s not surprising that Mr Hockey felt this way given his wife Melissa Babbage was the Head of Global Finance at Deutsche Bank. At this time Mr Hockey and Tony Abbott had opposing views. Cut to April 2013 — five months before the election — when the then Shadow Treasurer was the key note at an executive women’s lunch and his view had flipped. He no longer supported quotas and would skirt (no pun intended) around any questions on the matter. Coincidence?
We need leadership on this issue, we need to take risks and we need smart decisions. Not only from corporate Australia but also from governments. Part of me hopes that Joe Hockey is working as a covert agent within the LNP, secretly rousing his colleagues with his pro-women in leadership and quotas arguments. Part of me hopes the Treasurer is getting through to our Prime Minister. Part of me thinks that maybe the Treasurer is getting through because after all we now have double the amount of women on the front bench.
This was first published on Medium and is republished here with permission.