Bold actions for gender equality

As we mark International Women’s Day with my colleagues around the world on 8 March, I’ve been reflecting on how fortunate I am to interact with and learn from so many amazing women leaders within PwC, leading businesses and solving complex challenges with our clients and stakeholders, as well as in the organizations with which we are associated and learning from. I’m reminded of several discussions recently, from the World Economic Forum in Davos to the hallways of PwC around the world to client meetings, on an important topic: how everyone benefits when companies and governments provide equal opportunities for women.

One lesson that emerged in Davos in particular is that companies today aren’t just facing a shortage of resources; we’re facing a shortage in the opportunities that companies offer to women. There is a growing awareness that female empowerment is about creating opportunities for all of society.

For business leaders, equal opportunity isn’t about political correctness or looking backward and redressing past wrongs. For today’s employers, looking forward so that women have equal opportunities is a critical business need; where they have to allocate resources so their future workforce has the skills it needs to thrive. PwC’s 22nd CEO Survey collected the thoughts of over 1,300 top executives around the globe and showed that availability of key skills is among their greatest concerns. Over 60% of CEOs said it is ‘more difficult’ to hire workers in their industry compared to 43% in 2012. When asked ‘Why it was more difficult to hire workers in their industry’ half said it was due to a ‘deficit in supply of skilled workers’.

Developed countries are already starting to face shortages of workers as populations age, and to maintain growth, emerging economies need to find ways to bring women into the workforce. PwC UK's newly released Women in Work Index 2019 breaks down the state of female economic empowerment across 33 OECD countries as well as China and India. The report shows that while progress is being made, the pace of progress is slow. An average gender pay gap of 15% persists in the OECD countries we looked at and female employment rates still have room to grow – with significant economic benefits at stake. Improving female work participation rates to the benchmark set by Sweden could boost OECD GDP by $6 trillion and boost GDP in China and India by $7.5 trillion.

In addition to quantitative challenges, there’s also a qualitative one: Since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, the relative importance of physical strength in the workplace has been decreasing. As Industry 4.0 increasingly assigns to machines intellectual tasks such as analysis, skills like intuition and empathy – traditionally seen by society as more female – are commanding an increasing premium.

The question of skills development also fits into the discussion of how government and business can find new frameworks to see to it that new technologies are helping to address inequality, not exacerbating it, and that resources for education and skill development are distributed based on aptitude and talent, not social class. That also goes to the question of who will pick up the tab for reskilling workers so that they can thrive in the new environment. A WEF report released at Davos looks at how businesses can work with multiple stakeholders so that upskilling delivers opportunity for all, fighting any impact of gender bias.

Companies who take bold steps to make women’s empowerment the heart of their skills strategy will reap outsized rewards. At PwC, this International Women’s Day, we’re highlighting three bold actions organisations can take to advance gender equality.

Achieving pay equity: While much has been done in this area in recent years, much remains to be done. The PwC network regularly conducts comprehensive reviews of compensation data to understand any differences and make the adjustments we need. Different territories take different approaches to the issue, as appropriate in their particular legal and cultural environment. PwC UK, for example, has a track record of transparency, publishing gender pay gap data before it was legally required. PwC Switzerland’s Global Gender Pay Compass, launched last year, reveals a range of approaches by governments to address this issue. By making sure we’re measuring the phenomenon properly, we see to it that our efforts to address the issue are targeted in the right place.

Driving gender balance: One way we can increase gender balance is by making our Boards and senior leadership teams more diverse – and there are steps we can take to increase that diversity. We see progress around the world in efforts to make Boards more diverse and feel that, where that has been achieved, it’s time to deliver on the diversity promise by feeding through more diverse thinking and staffing. With efforts to recruit graduate female talent now fairly well entrenched around the globe, we need to shift our focus to experienced hiring, particularly in STEM, to build that leadership “bench strength.” We also must identify the areas where there is disproportion and apply interventions to drive equal representation at all levels of the organisation in the future. Getting the balance right today is essential to remaining relevant in the digital world of tomorrow.

Changing mindsets to change culture: A change in corporate culture begins – and ends – with a change in individual attitudes toward issues of gender equality. Each of us has to be committed to examining our own behaviours in order to achieve change for an entire organisation. One way we are doing this is through our ongoing support of HeForShe. Another way is through training programs to help us identify our blind spots. Together we are looking at the most common ways gender bias plays out in workplaces and the actions everyone can take to challenge any potential bias.

All this week, we are releasing a series of videos addressing each of these issues. You can view them at www.pwc.com/iwd. I hope you will take some time to watch our videos marking International Women’s Day – and join the discussion.

What bold actions will you take to advance gender equality?