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Women In Business 2023

WIB: Pandemic-prompted work changes bring slight progress for women leaders

08 Mar 2023 5 min read

According to P&A Grant Thornton Chairman and CEO Marivic Españo, ‘During the pandemic, we have seen the versatility of women in a phenomenon that experts called the double shift, where female staff juggled office work alongside their essential roles at home.

GRANT Thornton's 2023 Women in Business (WIB) Report shows that while post-pandemic changes in work practices have contributed to the increase in the number of women holding senior management roles in mid-market firms, there remains a lot to be done to address gender disparity in the workplace.

The report, which tallied results of a survey of more than 100 mid-market companies in the Philippines across various industries and which specialize in different lines of business, shows that nearly half or 49 percent of senior management roles are held by women, notches higher than 39 percent recorded in the 2022 WIB report.

Majority of respondents shared that the corporate positions held by women within their organizations include chief finance officer and human resources director.

Nearly half or 42 percent of firms interviewed also said that their sales directors are women.

"During the pandemic, we have seen the versatility of women in a phenomenon that experts called the 'double shift,' where female staff juggled office work alongside their essential roles at home. It is interesting to see that more businesses are making significant changes to their organizational policies as they recover and adapt to the demands of the post-pandemic normal," P&A Grant Thornton Chairman and CEO Marivic Españo said.

"But as we can see from the results of our Women in Business Report, progress in narrowing the gender disparity has been, for the longest time, just an offshoot effect of solutions to other workplace issues. The time is ripe to adopt strategies focused and dedicated solely to bridging the gender gap still present today," she added.

While progress on the overall number of women in senior leadership in the Philippines continues, Grant Thornton's latest research reveals that global progress has been slow, with the number of senior management positions in mid-market businesses held by women increasing only half a percentage point to 32.4 percent, and 13 percentage points since the research was first undertaken in 2003.

Karitha Ericson, global leader of network capability and culture at Grant Thornton International Limited, emphasized that unless businesses develop cultures that empower people through flexible ways of working and take additional steps to support women into senior leadership positions, only 34 percent of senior leadership positions in mid-market businesses globally will be held by women in 2025.

"Businesses must take intentional actions to accelerate progress and strive for 40 percent of senior leadership roles to be held by women by 2025, so that they can reap the benefits of greater diversity," Karitha said in a statement, pertaining to the global initiative to increase the proportion of women in senior leadership roles.

 

As published in The Manila Times, dated 08 March 2023

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