Mixing it up: recruiters’ role in promoting women

Jo Faragher

Evidence shows that employing more women at a senior level improves results, yet a new report says companies must make more of women’s role in business. How can recruiters help, asks Jo Faragher?

Most recruiters would like to think that they’re tapping into the widest talent pool possible, but are they in danger of missing out on a group of candidates with real potential? A Government report released this week by the Women’s Business Council suggests that UK employers could make much more of women’s contribution to economic growth.

According to Ruby McGregor-Smith, CBE, chair of the WBC and chief executive of outsourcing company MITIE, businesses should be taking more steps to “unblock the talent pipeline that for so long has restricted women from reaching the most senior levels in business”. The report makes a number of recommendations, from broadening career choices while girls are at school to providing skills for women to start their own businesses, but the key point it makes is that there is an overwhelming business case for promoting women through successful careers in business.

Unlike some European Union countries, UK employers do not currently have to comply with quotas for female executive board representation. However, research shows that, while women make up 47% of the workforce, their representation falls in more senior positions – they only make up 33% of managers, directors and senior officials, and only 13.3% of FTSE 250 board members. In 2011, a report by the peer Lord Davies recommended that FTSE 100 boards aim for a minimum of 25% female representation by 2015 – so there is some way to go yet.

Defining success

So how can recruiters help redress this balance? Ines Wichert, senior psychologist at the Kenexa High Performance Institute and an expert on women in leadership, believes their role is crucial. “Recruiters are an important middle piece. They can help senior management define what they are looking for in a role and challenge any commonly accepted success criteria, helping them get away from this idea of an ‘ideal candidate’ and move out of their comfort zone,” she explains.

Part of the problem, says Wichert, is that senior executives – especially when hiring very senior people – rely a great deal on gut feel, tending to rely on bringing in similar (often white and male) people to those that they have recruited before. “Where women have a problem is they’re not seen to be as promotable as men. If you’re looking for someone to fill a crucial role, you’ll go for what you know,” she adds. “Recruiters can help them take a risk, assessing people against objective criteria, making sure the evidence is adhered to.”

Ines Wichert, Kenexa

Some recruitment companies have gone as far as to launch their own initiatives to promote female talent. Harvey Nash runs a programme called Inspire, which brings together senior, board-level businesswomen to exchange ideas and experiences with their peers. Earlier this year, it conducted a survey, which found that the biggest barrier to women reaching the board was a male-dominated culture. More than half of respondents said that this type of corporate culture – where networking outside of work or staying longer in the office are the norm but prove challenging for female staff who may have additional family responsibilities – reduces the length of time a woman is prepared to stay with that company.

“Often the bias that creates this male dominated culture is unintentional and unconscious. Without realising it, senior managers often celebrate presenteeism and reward those employees who they have the most immediate access to,” said Carol Rosati, co-founder of Inspire and a director of Harvey Nash on launching the research.

Improving awareness

Practical ways recruiters can help employers to promote greater gender diversity in senior roles include advising them on succession planning processes, and helping to define clear criteria for these roles that do not unconsciously block female candidates. For example, demanding that someone reaches a certain sales target is acceptable – stipulating that they do so by spending every weekend playing golf with clients is not. They can also help clients to weigh up candidates’ strengths during the recruitment process.

Says Wichert: “Recruiters can do a really good job of helping organisations to see that men and women talk about their achievements in a different way. Men tend to say ‘I did this’, while women will say ‘we’. Men focus on all the things they can do on the list of criteria, while women focus on the things they can’t.”

And for agencies to be really objective advisers to their clients, it helps to work on their own consultants’ awareness of the issues. More and more organisations are looking into unconscious bias training, for example, which tackles many of the stereotypes we have around not just gender, but also issues such as race, sexuality, religion and social background. In fact, many clients may ask for a proven track record in diversity, or training around diversity awareness, when looking for agencies to add to their preferred supplier list.

But Morgan Lobb, director of inclusive job board DiversityJobs.co.uk, says the drive to attract a more diverse pool of candidates should go beyond pure ‘box-ticking’. He says: “There’s a real change in the way diversity is looked at in the UK. Over the last year, people have been getting to grips with the fact it could be good for business, not just ‘good for the planet’. They now realise that if their workforce is actually reflecting the individuals they sell to, they have a better understanding of what they want. Recruitment agencies are the gatekeepers for a lot of organisations, and they could be missing out on talent.”

DiversityJobs.co.uk works with membership organisation everywoman, which champions the advancement of women in business. There are a number of groups focused on female talent, many of them sector-specific, so it pays to form partnerships with these groups and attend networking events as it opens up access to relevant female candidates.

In the US, Fortune 500 companies with more women officers and board directors financially outperform those with fewer (in return on sales an investment), according to research by Catalyst, so there is a clear business case for getting more women into senior roles. Whether that’s sourcing strong first-level managers primed for promotion, or drawing up short-lists for the next CEO, recruiters can play a part in that success.