But when you look up at the top tiers of your organisation, the gap between the number of men and women remains wide. And it’s not for a lack of women-focused initiatives, or a dearth of female talent entering your workforce. So why is the needle moving so slowly?
 

This is a conundrum that faces many organisations and which we’ve observed and analysed for the past 10 years. What we’ve discovered – backed by our ground-breaking research, which you can read here – is that many companies are overlooking the fundamentals.

A key issue is companies making assumptions about what their women actually want and need based on generic insights or outdated thinking. As a result, they roll out standardised interventions, often haphazardly, targeting a small cohort of women and/or intervening too late in a woman’s career. While well-intentioned, these initiatives have little or no impact. Worse still, women perceive the organisation to be paying lip service to true gender balance, which undermines trust and loyalty. Even when gender parity is realised in theory, women are often paying a huge personal price to get there and then opting to leave. The equal representation companies are so proud of is actually in a constant state of precarious balance.