The amount of women at executive committee level has remained at 17% for more than two years in FTSE 100 businesses despite the number of women in large corporates increasing at all other levels, according to research by the Cracking the Code team, a collaboration between KPMG, Why Women Work, YSC and the 30% Club
The number of women holding roles in the ranks immediately below the executive committee has increased by 2% to 25% in 2016.
The research analysed 850 roles in executive committees in the FTSE 100, looked at data from 15 corporates and conducted follow up interviews with 70 of the 89 women originally interviewed in 2014.
As part of the research Why Women Work conducted the follow up interviews and found that most of these women had made career moves and female executives expressed how they no longer feel as though they are the ‘token women’.
Rachel Short, director of Why Women Work said: ‘Most exciting for me are the signs that women seem to be succeeding on their own terms and doing what feels right for them rather than replicating what works for men at work. As their numbers tip beyond 30% at all levels, they are helping to reshape organisational dynamics and what leadership looks like in large corporates.’
It is impossible to tell when businesses will see 30% of executive committee roles being performed by women but the report claims more needs to be done to make companies publicly report the gender balance in their organisation.
Melanie Richards, vice chair at KPMG said: ‘It’s clear there remains a degree of ‘corporate nervousness’ when it comes to monitoring and reporting diversity, with many leaders concerned that the data will lead to a bad news story for the business.
‘However, failing to collate and interrogate diversity data merely contributes to a lack of clarity on cause and effect. By monitoring the progression of women at all levels, both business and government will be able to better understand where women tend to stall in the executive pipeline compared with men.’
The report found that external hiring was a key factor driving change rather than businesses developing the female talent that they already have. Since 2012, YSC has seen an increase of 6% in the proportion of female executives being assessed at a senior leadership level as part of an external hiring process.
CEOs reported that there are few internal female candidates with enough experience or enough confidence to take on enterprise leadership roles.
Childrearing is not the main barrier to career progression, those who were on maternity leave when interviewed intended to go back to work and continue their career afterwards.
The new research by the Cracking the Code team is here.
