Study on non-legislative initiatives for companies to promote gender ...

Gender equality initiatives 107
3.5 Retention
The basic motivation for a company to engage in retention initiatives is the observation
that competences are lost when well qualified personnel are leaving. Retention becomes
especially relevant when major changes in the private life of employees make
adaptations of their work schedule necessary, notably when a child is born.
The large companies analysed are in general aware of the range of possibilities that
exist to react and keep their female personnel (as, especially in the first period, birth of
a child leads to an interruption of the work process of women). They have over the past
year elaborated rather sophisticated retention strategies for talented women. These
initiatives are often composed of measures from different fields of intervention, e. g.
reconciliation, career development and networking. The measures range from e. g.
support programmes for persons with caring responsibilities to developing career
objectives or networking. Some company approaches in the field of retention are
described in the following.
Based on the analysis of statistics (that showed a lower share of women in senior
management positions while the shares of men and women in lower management
positions were equal) and on the perception that the company is loosing talented
workforce as women tended to stay at home after having given birth to a child, KPMG
LLP in the United Kingdom has elaborated a comprehensive programme to retain and
promote women on their way to senior management positions. To find out about the
barriers that prevent women from reaching senior level, an on-line survey among all
managers (male and female) has been conducted.
The 3 most important barriers according to this survey lie in balancing work and family,
the perception of the role of a senior manager, and a lack of respectively too few
female role models. In the next step, a specific training programme that consists of 3
modules (comprising reconciliation measures, several training and coaching modules
as well as networking) has been elaborated with the help of internal and external
experts. This programme is continuously being monitored and adapted where and
when necessary.
Back in 2005, the then CEO of KPMG in the UK expressed concern about the dropoff
in representation of women after middle management grade, especially in
client-facing roles. In 2005, women made up approx. half of the UK workforce at manager
level but only about one third at senior manager level. As research clearly shows
that organisations which have women in senior positions are more likely to prosper, this
fact did not make good business sense.
Given these circumstances, a decision was made to launch the Retaining Talented
Women strategy. The objective was twofold – to understand the reasons behind the
observed drop-out in figures of women on the one hand, and to take action in response,
on the other hand. To ensure high quality of the outcome, the implementation of this
strategy has been based on extensive research.
By means of an internal online survey, which was completed by men and women (in
different management levels), the respondents were asked to identify the main barriers
for career progression for women. The 3 top barriers that were identified thereby were
balancing of work and family, the perception of women as less committed due to family
commitments as well as a lack of senior or visibly successful role models.