Women in the Workplace 2024 – The 10th Anniversary Report – Gender Parity and Equity – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1010

Women in the Workplace 2024 – The 10th Anniversary Report – Gender Parity and Equity – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1010

Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1010 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to aq.pharmaveterans@gmail.com for publishing your contributions here.

Credit: Edmond Dantès

Credit: Jopwell

Credit: Ron Lach

Preamble

Women in the workplace is the largest study on the state of women in corporate America. The findings however can be applied with some variations to other countries. Europe is behind already, and Asian/ African countries are far behind in working towards equal participation of women across the line of command.

The study was launched in 2015 by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Co.; current report is the 10th anniversary report. Over the last 10 years, more than 1,000 companies have participated in the study, and over 480,000 people were surveyed on their workplace experiences. In 2024, information was collected from 281 participating organizations employing over 10 million employees, and interviews were conducted with more than 15,000 employees, people with diverse identities. [Link to full text at the end].

Additional note: Since the report is based on the US data, the disparity between White women, Women of Color, and Women of Latino origin is also quite significant. I have left that detail out as it does not apply here.

Excerpts from the Study

Over the last decade, three things have happened with regards to women in workplace. The companies took action in this direction and important progress took place:

• More women came up in leadership roles

• Employee policies improved

• Efforts were increased to make the organizations more inclusive

These are important developments; however, lot more needs to be done to reach the goals of gender parity, equity, removing the glass ceiling, repairing the broken rung, and fostering inclusivity.

Gender Parity in Leadership Roles

Over the past decade, there have been important gains for women at every level of the corporate

pipeline, particularly in senior leadership. This progress matters: research shows that companies with more women in leadership benefit from greater innovation, healthier cultures, and stronger performance. And in addition to offering valuable skills and perspectives, women leaders inspire the next generation of women to make their mark. However, the pipeline is not as healthy as the numbers suggest. At the beginning, too few women – and especially women of color—are advancing into management positions. Over the last several years, the primary driver of progress for women in senior leadership has been a reduction in line roles. And at the highest level—the C-suite—what drove gains in representation will be nearly impossible to replicate in t

he years to come. At the current rate of progress, it will take almost 50 years to reach parity for all women in corporate America—and that assumes companies can translate their somewhat precarious momentum into more substantial and sustainable gains.

During five years, from 2020 to 2024, the change is recorded as below.

Level Entry Manager     Director VP     SVP     C-suite

2024 48%         39%             37%         35%     29%     29%

2020 47%         38%             33%         29%     28%     21%

Despite progress, women remain underrepresented across the pipeline. Another anomaly is that men make up around half at entry level, but surpass women at every step, finally outnumbering them hugely; 71% vs 29%.

In Pakistan, women are much more underrepresented than US and other developed countries. This is despite the fact, that more girls are getting education, rather, outshining the boys. At the entry level, for every 100 men, probably 10 or less women are hired. For the managers’ slots, this ratio becomes worse, where for every 50 male managers, there may be only one female manager. We have also fixed certain functions where women may work and may even advance their careers more easily. HR is one, customer services is another, teaching is yet another, and the list ends. Women are disproportionately left out of most jobs; the barriers start from the entry level and continue throughout their careers.

To achieve parity, companies will need to maintain the momentum of progress, which would mean addressing weak spots in their pipeline. For most companies, it will mean fixing the broken rung once and for all, investing more energy and resources in developing women leaders, and staying committed to this objective. At the current rate of progress, it will take 48 years for the representation of women in senior leadership roles to reflect their share in the U.S. population. 

For Pakistan, we cannot put a time frame because we do not know when the polices will be reversed or changed for the worse. Many in our power structure are quite impressed by Taliban of Afghanistan and would like to bring the same system here. If that happens, all progress may be reversed.

Gender Equity

Over the last 10 years, companies have taken steps to support the advancement of women and make the workplace more equitable. Many employees recognize that now women have more opportunities to advance and point to companies’ increased efforts to make the workplace more inclusive. Companies have put more practices in place to de-bias hiring and performance reviews, two of the biggest levers of employee advancement. They have prioritized equity and inclusion with managers and invested more heavily in training employees to recognize bias and practice allyship. However, there is clear evidence that companies need to push further. For example, fewer companies are investing in career development and sponsorship programs that address the unique challenges of women. And although well intended, company efforts to activate employees—who have a critical role to play in changing the culture of work—have not translated into enough action.

Core practices to de-bias hiring and performance reviews include: 

• Developing clear evaluation criteria before candidates are considered

• Offering bias training to evaluators

• Using diverse slates of similarly qualified candidates

• Clear criteria for performance evaluation

• Reminders to avoid bias

However, only 27% of the surveyed companies had all five core practices in place.

Gender equity is an integral part of actions for achieving gender parity in the long run. The situation is not very promising at this time.

Concluded.

Disclaimers: Pictures in these blogs are taken from free resources at Pexels, Pixabay, Unsplash, and Google. Credit is given where available. If a copyright claim is lodged, we shall remove the picture with appropriate regrets.

For most blogs, I research from several sources which are open to public. Their links are mentioned under references. There is no intent to infringe upon anyone’s copyrights. If, however, it happens unintentionally, I offer my sincere regrets. 

Reference:

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace#/