Empowering women in the workplace

Organisations nowadays recognise that employees are their biggest assets. Many are spending a lot of efforts and resources on talent attraction and retention. When developing succession planning strategies, businesses need to ensure that they take this element into consideration – empower the next generation of female employees into leadership positions.

Women make up almost half of the workforce in many countries; however female professionals continue to face issues limiting their growth trajectory within organisations. As gender diversity has proven to improve team performance and success, it is important that organisations create more diverse and successful teams to unlock the full potential of the workforce.

Our latest whitepaper, entitled ‘Empowering Women in the Workplace’, was created to provide insights into gender diversity and empowerment in the workplace. To find out more and access the research in full please download the PDF here.

About the research

The whitepaper – ‘Empowering Women in the Workplace’ – surveyed over 4,400 clients and job seekers across APAC (Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam), and addresses:

• Career priorities of working professionals
• How female leaders are regarded in the workplace
• The need for equal representation of female leaders within an organisation
• What companies can do to empower women in their careers

Key findings

• Career priorities of working professionals in APAC show little difference across genders – both men (35%) and women (42%) consider working in a job they find fulfilling and rewarding their top career priority
• Only 32% of respondents agree that women make up more than 20% of leadership positions in their organisations 
• 80% of female respondents think that women are under-represented in leadership positions in business
• When asked to name the reasons why women are under-represented in the workplace, 52% of women believe it is due to a preference by management to promote men over women, while 50% attribute it to family pressure or commitments outside of work (50%)
• To facilitate women in their careers, 71% of female respondents find mentoring or sponsorship at senior management level a helpful measure, while 48% would like to have personalised training programmes

Our recommendations

To encourage gender diversity and increase overall levels of satisfaction among employees, organisations can consider the following measures:

• Identify the motivational factors that drive employees early in the recruitment process
  Harness the strengths of diverse teams
• Consider flexible working options for both parents
• Mentoring can aid women in their career development
• Encourage women to showcase their leadership by giving them high-visibility initiatives
  Start gender diversity from the top

To find out more and access the research in full please download the PDF here.