Women Signal Recovery

Has anyone noticed the sudden resurgence of articles in the media over the past month on the lack of women in senior roles within business and on boards in Australia?

And it isn’t just the media.  Over the past 10 days, I have been to two Banking and Financial Services events where the key note speakers addressed diversity within their business, specifically pertaining to the imbalance of women to men in senior roles.

One of the speakers acknowledged that their organisation had gone backwards in regards to diversity over the past two years; and in fact, the role responsible for diversity within their HR team had been made redundant during the GFC.

Last week, one of our clients, a global group, acknowledged at a quarterly review with its recruitment suppliers that it is well below national and global standards for women in senior roles.

This is very exciting, and no, I haven’t turned into a radical feminist.  The reason I am excited is that this is the most significant indicator of market recovery I have seen in some time.

The fact that global and local Banks and Financial Services groups are proactively raising and addressing diversity tells me how far organisational psyche has shifted back into business as usual.

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