Women on company boards

The Dude

Just been reading this article on the BBC news site and thought it was worthy of discussion.

Top 10 worst excuses for not appointing women executives - 'All the good women have been snapped up'

I agree that company boards should have more women and more diversity generally. Homogenous groups are certainly going to be more prone to group think and underperformance.

Reading the article made me question how this is being tackled though.

For instance, the article flags the top 10 reasons  companies gave for a lack of women. And they include this as a bad reason.

- "There aren't any vacancies at the moment - if there were I would think about appointing a woman"

How on earth is no vacancies a bad reason? Especially when they go on to say when there is a vacancy they would consider appointing a woman?

And then we have these, which are essentially the same issue of the number of candidates with the right experience and skills.

-"There aren't that many women with the right credentials and depth of experience to sit on the board - the issues covered are extremely complex

-"All the 'good' women have already been snapped up"

-We need to build the pipeline from the bottom - there just aren't enough senior women in this sector"

Again, why are these bad reasons? Surely someone on the board of a FTSE350 company should be able to do the job and have relevant skills and experience?

I just cannot understand why any sensible person would think it unreasonable for a company not to have women on their boards when they have no vacancies or limited suitable candidates.

Toko Black

Gender/diversity politics has no place in business any more than it does Hollywood or  sport.

If we're going to play the quota game then from my perspective we should surely start by addressing the disturbing lack of left handed Yorkshiremen sitting on the boards of FTSE350 companies.

rancidpunk

It's often a difficult and devicive topic to discuss.
There is no doubt the sexism has and does exist in all aspects of life - both from males against females and vice versa.
The real questions are is it something we can totally stop or is it something that is natural - and if so what are the reasonable boundaries ie where does it go from relatively harmless to harmful and really needing to be addressed ?
There are groups and campaigners that believe differences between the genders in terms of ability and performance be it physical, mental or emotional are purely a social construct and a result of social conditioning pushing either gender into roles that stimulate or encourage different traits.
Then there are others that believe all the differences between genders are purely biological.

For me, I believe it's a mix of both to lesser and greater degrees.
Are there some social and cultural constructs/systems that encourage some traits while discouraging others that differ between the sexes - yes.
Are there biological reasons that cause physical, mental and emotional traits to differ between the sexes - yes.

I believe that some social and cultural constructs are a bi product of the natural differences in genders caused by biology.
For example, the tendancy of girls to want to study and work in more caring roles.
There are other social and cultural constructs that have historically been based upon defining what a woman should be rather than what individual women want to be or are.

The problem is, that some loud voices in the feminist movement simply don't accept my position and that does tend to push the agenda away from trying to deal with actual sexism and into the realms of social engineering to try and make one gender equal to the other when it is simply not possible nor desired.

When it comes to the board room, there are lots of women who are prepared to put in the hours and make the sacrifices required to compete with what men are prepared to sacrifice.
However, there are simply far more men prepared to do so than women. Even if you rule out any social biases, give lots of encouragement and support to girls in education and the work place, there is and will still be less women than men prepared to take on those roles.

All other things being equal ie talent, skills and dedication, the simple fact that there are more men applying or competing for those roles than women, indicates by the law of averages, that more men will get those positions than women.
What we do need to make sure is that every effort is made to make sure it is fair and based on talents, skills and dedication, not gender.

justincase

It depends on whether they are genuine reasons, or just excuses. Yes, having no vacancies is a reason for not currently taking on anyone, but doesn't answer why historically they may have never taken on a female board member. Well over one third of the 350 boards have no female members whatsoever.

The same applies further down the chain. If women are being denied opportunities then that will only cascade upwards to available board candidates. That said, and as Toko mentions, even when given an equality of opportunity it doesn't follow that more women will go into these roles. It's not just a male dominated position because of discrimination, and makes the arbitrary 35% target a pointless one.

Stuey1

Not relevant as such but any subject about women in workplaces etc always makes me think of this

The Dude

The article linked suggests that only 10 of the FTSE 350 companies was an all-male board in 2017 compared to almost half in 2011 - I may be misunderstanding it though

Bl4ckGryph0n

There's also a bit of an elephant in the room with regards to gender diversity politics too... If the Gov want a third of board positions to be filled by women come 2020 are they talking about women who were born female or women who now identify as being female? If it's the latter (as it must be) are we happy with self-identified women or are we going to need some sort of medical evidence?

What happens if a company hires a 'woman' in order to satisfy the qouta who then decides she's transgender and starts identifying as a 'man', you'd have to assume we're going to need legislation to cover her being replaced with a 'woman'?


I really don't think they've put enough thought into this one.

Bl4ckGryph0n

I'm a firm believer that the right person with the right skills, experience, connections, influence etc should be part of the board in any organisation; gender, race etc really doesn't even come into it.

Saying that our board only got one female on it, but again not a conscious decision and gender was never part of the selection.

On the other hand, I was lucky enough to have been in Barclay's Rise for a while and met a whole bunch of inspiring female CEO's in the (fin)tech industry. It was pretty cool to see so much more diversity compared to ordinary large organisations.

Saying that, it just sprung to mind that certain law enforcement/intelligence agencies I worked for also had many senior females and to DG level.

I'm wondering whether this is actually a really issue or just some good old clickbait.

rancidpunk

I think that dilemma is best worked out over a few beers

The Dude

Nope, you're spot on. That's me skim reading it, cheers.