It’s not just the women on the boards we need to look at

Jo Faragher

Perhaps it’s a confirmation of some success if – four years after the first recommendations were released – Lord Davies’s final Women on Boards report suggests a new voluntary target of 33%.

When his first report came out in 2011, many thought the original target of 25% by 2015 was unachievable, but it was in fact achieved earlier this year.

Others called for more stringent legal pressures to force companies to improve their gender representation on boards, suggesting quotas as they have in some Scandinavian countries.

The progress shown so far by FTSE 350 companies proves that the voluntary approach can work. However, there are many more systemic issues to do with gender in the workplace that also need to be addressed.

Next year, larger companies will also have to carry out equal pay reviews and publish information on their gender pay gap. The hope is that this will be a further push for companies to embrace diversity, and for those that are reflected well, it could prove to be a useful attraction and retention tool.

Also on the pay side, we have the introduction of the new national living wage from April. It’s thought that the living wage increase will raise pay for around 30%, or more than three million, of the female workforce in the UK. Bringing in the new rate will force companies to analyse the make-up of their lower-paid workforce, and they may find it to be predominantly female.

At the top of organisations, in director or non-executive director roles, the presence of more women is very visible, and the impact on diversity at senior level is not to be underestimated. But through these other developments, and as part of being a company that does the right thing, employers also need to consider whether that diversity runs through the ranks of the business as a whole. Are they ticking boxes at the top, but underpaying or discriminating against women employees at lower levels?

Many of the developments in the employment sphere over the next few years will shine a light into these dark corners, and could mean reputations are on the line where women are underpaid or under-represented. Those that look at gender diversity in the round, by contrast, can only benefit from being more equitable employers.