Nearly half of women think all decision-makers in their organisations are men
A large proportion (45 per cent) of working women still believe that women don’t hold enough of the senior posts in their company, according to research from telecoms firm O2.
A further 48 per cent of the 2,000 women surveyed by the firm said they believed all the decision-makers in their organisations were male.
With just over 10 months to go until Lord Davies’ deadline for achieving 25 per cent female representation in the UK’s FTSE 100 boardrooms, 17 per cent of survey respondents felt it was “impossible” for a woman to reach a senior management role in their business.
The report Breaking the Boardroom: A guide for British businesses on how to support female leaders of the future’ which details the survey findings, said that the dearth of women at the top of UK PLC has not been caused by a lack of ambition.
More than a quarter (28 per cent) of women said they dreamed of being a chief executive, while 35 per cent plan to reach board level.
But a third (32 per cent) said their career so far had failed to live up to their expectations, with poor line management (33 per cent), a lack of proper training and development programmes (22 per cent) and negative office politics (28 per cent) all cited as obstacles to progression.
Crises of confidence also threaten to derail women’s progress up the ranks. More than a third (36 per cent) of those surveyed said they lacked the confidence needed to ask for a pay rise or promotion they felt they deserved. Meanwhile, those who said their careers had met or exceeded their expectations cited ‘luck’ as the number one factor in their success above more tangible factors such as skill, ambition and determination.
“Today’s findings make for uncomfortable reading,” said Ann Pickering, O2’s HR director and board member. “While the diversity debate has moved on outside of the office, not enough women are actually seeing this progress at work. If we’re to achieve sustainable and long-lasting change, we can’t just look at women already at the top; we need to focus our efforts on women at every level, creating a strong pipeline of female talent across British businesses.”
Dianah Worman, CIPD public policy adviser for diversity, said: “Anything that limits an organisation’s ability to appoint, promote and retain half of society’s potential leaders simply because of their gender has to be addressed.
“While there’s been genuine progress towards government targets to improve boardroom diversity, too much of this has been skewed towards non-executive positions. We’re calling on all parties in the forthcoming election to commit to a new voluntary target for at least 20 per cent of executive director positions in FTSE 100 firms to be filled by women by 2020.”
In response to the findings, O2 and the CIPD are launching a new guide to help UK employers implement an effective women in leadership programme.