Growing numbers of forward-thinking businesses are turning to coaches and mentors to develop their female employees, as the business community is rocked by yet more damning revelations of widespread sexual discrimination and harassment at work.
Liz Hall
Leadership coaches Hetty Einzig and Eunice Aquilina are among those reporting a rise in the number of organisations seeking help with developing female employees, and from women leaders seeking coaching.
Aquilina, founder of EA Consult, said, “We’re currently seeing a renewed commitment in organisations for a greater presence of women in senior leadership positions.”
Liz Dimmock, CEO and founder of social enterprise Women Ahead and 30% Club Steering Committee member said: “Our recent research [Turning the Gender Diversity Dial] proves mentoring is key to pushing gender diversity forward in UK businesses. Mentoring schemes are proven to enable a more inclusive culture by providing the skills and frameworks for more empathetic, accessible, male and female, future and current leaders who understand the challenges, barriers and issues facing women in senior leadership roles.
Einzig (see Profile), said, “I’m getting at least a contact a week from organisations saying we’re looking for coaches for our women leaders.” She said that in the current climate, coaches “have not just an opportunity, but a responsibility to step forward and support women leaders”.
Meanwhile, the 30% Club’s cross-company mentoring programme partnered by Women Ahead is growing. It welcomed nearly 2,000 mentors and mentees from 106 companies in the 2017-8 intake. Five years ago, only eight companies were on board.
The programme sees high-potential women in the ‘danger zone’ of their careers mentored by senior male and female leaders from high-profile businesses, with the aim of attracting and retaining women into leadership and board roles.
Organisations involved include: Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS, Financial Times, The British Army, Legal & General, Penguin Random House UK, Bupa, United Utilities and Volkswagen.
A study published in January by management consultancy McKinsey, Delivering through Diversity
(http://bit.ly/2nog951), reaffirms the correlation between diversity and company financial outperformance. Globally, the most gender-diverse businesses are 21% more likely to financially over-perform than their peers, according to the study of more than 1,000 companies covering 12 countries.
However, most organisations are still struggling in their bids to achieve a gender-balanced workplace, according to research by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). More than 80% of junior/middle managers believe that senior managers don’t do enough to promote gender balance, and 59% believe that their employer is failing to provide mentoring and sponsorship opportunities, according to the CMI’s survey of 856 managers
in the UK.
Some 85% of women and 80% of men have witnessed gender-discriminatory acts at work, according to the report, A Blueprint for Balance: Time to Fix the Broken Windows (http://bit.ly/2E1YRnG), also published in January.