McKinsey & Company released their 10th ‘Women in the Workplace’ research, in partnership with LeanIn.Org, reflecting on the notable gains women have made—and how their experiences at work in America. It rightly says sustainable progress toward parity requires that companies recommit to change. It adds that, in many ways, it is the same or worse than ten years ago. Now, I will pick selective statements and present my take on the ‘Women in the Workplace’ report India 2024- and I believe that the working women in India could corroborate how accurate my take is. So here is the officially plagiarised ( copied/transported) desktop report on ‘Women in the workplace’- and you can extrapolate it with a fair degree of understanding to different zones and countries. The McKinsey report is pretty robust at interviewing 15000 employees and 280+ HR leaders across 281 participating organisations with more than 10 MN people- my report does not boast a single interview or data point.
Women in the Workplace – India report.
The real (not even using the term absolute) parity is more than 75 years away (50 for the US) and may never be achieved.
Over the past few years, women have made significant gains at every level of the corporate pipeline (in senior leadership, too).
Despite the reservation policies and push, progress is surprisingly fragile, especially for women and women from backward regions and castes. They continue to be underrepresented at every level and view gender, caste and race as obstacles to their advancement.
Women’s outlook and day-to-day experiences are not much different, and in many cases, even worse than they were nearly a decade ago.
Three Points – Women in the Workplace- India report.
First, companies took action that led to significant progress.
Second, change is complex, messy, and complicated, and India is in the middle of the shifts that need to be addressed to fix the pipeline and make the work culture more equitable.
Third, the gains are fragile and less extensive than they are made to appear because perceptions are more important and are adulterated with realities.
Mixed Scorecard.
The scorecard for corporate India is mixed. There are bright spots, suggesting a strong perception that many reputed companies have the desired momentum. They seem to demonstrate commitment to diversity, but it is declining.
The path forward is simple: keep going. Over time in the recent past, pushed with a somewhat supportive environment, Government policies, and social media impact of democratic accessibility of information- women have not only remained ambitious and committed to their jobs – it is enhanced. Now, the corporate ( and the public sector) need to stay ambitious and dedicated to the important work they have started but may never finish in their lifetime.
The corporate pipeline: Progress is not parity
Women’s representation has increased at most levels of corporate management.
“There is a significant drop as women advance to managerial positions at 18.59% followed by a continuous decline in female representation in leadership positions, with 20.1% at director roles, 17.4% at Vice President roles and 15.3% at C-suite positions,” the Linkedin report in Mint. Moreover, there is a significant drop as women advance to managerial positions at 18.59%.
The Broken Ring – Women In Workplace.
While women’s representation in corporate roles has increased in the past few years, gains have been modest, with representation declining as women advance through the corporate hierarchy. Women remain underrepresented across the pipeline, a gender gap that persists regardless of race, caste, social status and ethnicity. Simply put, men outnumber women at every level. However, the trend is declining representation of women in more senior roles. Women have made modest but meaningful gains at the vice president and senior vice president levels since 2018. Still, their progress is more fragile than it appears because women remain less likely than men to be hired into entry-level roles and are far less likely than men to attain their very first promotion to a manager role—a situation that’s not improving with time.
Because of this “broken rung” in the corporate ladder, men significantly outnumber women at the manager level, making it incredibly difficult for companies to support sustained progress at more senior levels.
The primary reason women’s representation increased was that companies, on average, added staff roles—that is, positions in support functions, such as human resources, legal, and IT—and hired women into these new positions. Since companies cannot add new staff roles indefinitely, this is not a viable path to parity.
Company actions: There is still critical work to do.
In the past decade, companies have taken steps to support women’s advancement and make the workplace more equitable. Most think women have more opportunities to advance as companies increase their efforts to make the workplace more equitable.
Maybe it is a result of government policies and mandatory requirements that most reputed companies provide critical support for employees who are parents, caregivers, or managing health challenges—benefits that link to higher rates of happiness and employee retention. These benefits are especially helpful to women, who are more likely than men to have caregiving responsibilities.
Workplace flexibility
Workplace flexibility has expanded in the past decade, mostly in response to the pandemic; companies have dramatically increased their hybrid and remote work options. Flexibility is crucial to women, who report having more time to work when working remotely.
De-bias hiring.
Companies are doing more to de-bias hiring practices and performance reviews but need to go further. Not all of them follow all the five core practices for debiasing —developing clear evaluation criteria for hiring before candidates are considered; offering bias training for hiring evaluators; aspiring to have diverse slates of similarly qualified candidates for open positions; developing clear evaluation criteria for performance reviews; and sending reminders to avoid bias during reviews.
At the same time, some companies have scaled back programs designed to advance women. Fewer companies consider gender and racial diversity priorities for the organisation. After the initial push, career development, mentorship, and sponsorship programs geared toward women have decreased.
Not enough.
Even companies that set the right priorities need to translate those priorities into action, career advancement, or a culture of inclusion and employee well-being. These are critically important to organisational health and, in some ways, impact women in the workplace.
Progress has been uneven, and there are clear signs that more needs to be done. Employees would agree that there has been less progress in how organisations handle microaggressions and that men are far more optimistic than women about how women’s opportunities have improved over the past decade.
Women’s experiences at work have not improved.
Despite increased representation at work and expanded company efforts, women’s workplace has not improved. Today, women are no more optimistic than in the past about their gender’s impact on career advancement, even as they remain highly ambitious—and just as ambitious as men.
Women’s concerns stem from what they face in their daily work. Women, particularly women from backward social and economic backgrounds, are not getting enough support from their managers, who play a central role in women’s career advancement and daily work experiences.
Conventional wisdom suggests that ageism, or unfair treatment based on a person’s age, predominantly affects older workers. In reality, it is most pronounced for young women. About half of women under 30 say their age played a role in missing out on opportunities at work, and they are almost twice as likely as younger men to field unwanted comments about their age.
Microaggression – More Directed Towards Women.
What’s more, women continue to confront microaggressions as often today as several years ago. Women, especially LGBTQ+ women and women with disabilities, remain more likely than men to experience microaggressions, which makes it harder for women to speak up, take risks, and raise concerns at work. It can erode a sense of belonging and make it harder for individuals to bring their whole selves to work.
Microaggressions take a heavy toll. Women who experience them are more likely to feel burned out, consider quitting their jobs, and less likely to view their workplaces as equitable. By leaving microaggressions unchecked, companies risk losing talented employees and missing out on everything these women have to offer.
At the same time, inequity persists in the home as well. Most married or women with partners are responsible for most household work. In contrast, more men say they share household responsibilities equally with partners, suggesting a growing gap in how women and men perceive their contributions at home. On top of it, younger women report doing the same amount of housework as older women, which also signals a lack of progress.
The next phase requires a bigger playbook—recommendations for companies.
Over the past decade, companies have invested more energy and resources in women’s advancement. But the fragility of the progress in the pipeline highlights the need to do more. The work culture appears to be stuck despite companies’ efforts to activate managers and employees. If one thing is clear, it’s that deep, systemic change—which requires reshaping people’s mindsets and behaviours—is hard to achieve and does not follow a linear path.
The next phase of change will require even more tenacity, creativity, and optimism, which starts with companies rekindling their commitments to equity and fairness that have gotten them this far. For senior leaders, this means continuing to champion this vital work and challenging themselves and their organisations to do better.
For most companies, this will require implementing more of the right practices to help women advance. These may include bias reminders sent to evaluators, flexible working hours, racial diversity as a strategic priority, tracking attrition and promotion rates for women and women of social/economic backward strata, providing menopause support, paid sick and family leave, and support for in vitro fertilisation/fertility treatment and for adoption and surrogacy.
Finally, there are practical steps that companies can take to drive further progress in the areas we know are particularly important for advancing women and fostering inclusion: debiasing their hiring and promotions processes, inspiring and equipping employees to curb bias and practice allyship, and unlocking the power of managers to influence careers and team culture.
BLOG/092/2024 To connect, send an email, join on Twitter S_kotnala or subscribe to the weekly update.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER.
This is a plagiarised desktop report for India based on the McKinsey well-researched report for America. The author thanks McKinsey and Leanin.org and apologises for spoofing it by laterally re-orienting it as a Women in Workplace report of India. They will realise the point that the author is trying to make and understand it still works towards creating enhanced awareness for brands and companies to act. The original McKinsey report ‘Women in the Workplace- 10th Edition, can be accessed here.
