Large companies are facing increasing pressure from investors to improve diversity at the company’s top level. Investors are increasingly interested in gender diversity and equity assessments in companies to determine how they might respond to ESG-related risks and opportunities. In Europe, companies are also facing institutional pressure to improve gender balance at board level.
The social component of ESG encompasses all the ways companies interact with their employees and the communities in which they operate. Diversity, equality and inclusion are part of the “S” in ESG. Other social factors of management are the company’s health and safety performance and its labor relations between management and workers.
What are the benefits of including more women in leadership positions?
The benefits are numerous. Companies that have diversity and inclusion policies in place have been proven to be more profitable and profitable. S&P Global Market Intelligence’s global study, When Women Lead, Firms Win, found that firms with female CFOs were more profitable and outperformed the market average. The research also found that firms with high gender diversity on the board of directors were more profitable and larger than firms with less gender diversity.
Supporting women’s career development through sponsorship
How can women’s careers be supported and ensure that they have a greater impact on the organization? In addition to training and programs, some companies support the careers of women in teams through special initiatives. Magdalena Tarasiewicz from UBS Poland talks about the Diversity Talent Hunt initiative, in which the identified female talents in the company are connected with a sponsor who supports their career development for a year.
The concept of sponsorship is relatively new for Bulgaria and can be found in some of the larger international companies. Sponsorship is usually carried out by a senior manager and aims to promote the career development of the sponsored person. It is different from the more familiar mentoring concept in our country. Mentoring focuses on the mentor/mentee relationship and the help the mentor can provide directly to the mentee. Sponsorship is a tool to improve the proportional representation of groups facing specific career advancement challenges.
