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COVID-19 has reshaped the way businesses work to attract and retain female talent with accounting and finance industries seeing growth in leadership roles, a global survey finds.
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More women become finance and accounting leaders during COVID
07 March 2022
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The pandemic has made sourcing staff increasingly difficult and almost 80 per cent of Australian businesses have focused on promoting female talent, according to the Women in Business Report 2022 from global accounting firm Grant Thornton.
At 57 per cent, the majority of Australian business leaders feel increasing pressure from stakeholders – including customers, regulators, suppliers and investors – on their organisation to achieve and maintain gender balance as a result of COVID-19.
“With International Women’s Day just around the corner, it’s important to bring local and global strategies to the forefront that will assist women to increase workforce participation and fulfil more senior roles across all industries,” Greg Keith, chief executive of Grant Thornton Australia, said.
“These strategies may include extended paid parental leave, flexible working conditions including working from home and working from overseas, and internal mentoring programs and built-in coaching to support gender equity.”
Mr Keith said Grant Thornton Australia already had all these programs in place and is now looking to expand its own Gender Equity Action Plan with several initiatives over the coming months.
The report revealed the accounting and finance industries have been outliers among the professions, with more women in CFO positions – the operational role in which female representation is strongest.
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“This may be due to the growing diversity of routes into the accounting and finance professions, making them more accessible to female and minority applicants,” Anna Johnson, CEO Grant Thornton Sweden said.
“Ultimately, we would hope to see an even spread of female talent across all senior positions. Then the concept of gender-specific skill sets and attributes will be abandoned, and individuals allowed to excel where their talents lie.
“Although it is gratifying to see more women in strategy-related roles, we must have a spread throughout the organisation, not only in certain positions. Then we create real business value by adding different perspectives.”
In Australia, 75 per cent of respondents expect the impact of COVID-19 will continue to benefit women’s career trajectories as new ways of working become the norm.
While this could be an indication that a step change is imminent, the number of women in senior management positions in Australia remains at 32 per cent in 2022, the same as last year, according to the report.
The figure has grown by just 10 percentage points in Australia over the past eight years, showing that progress has been slow.
“To create more opportunities for women in senior leadership roles, business leaders need to champion the cause of gender diversity and create inclusive cultures in which a wide range of voices are listened to,” Mr Keith said.
“Leadership from the top is key to driving change, as is setting clear diversity and inclusion goals against which progress can be measured.
“It’s important that business leaders are in it for the long term and vocal about what they are doing to drive change in their own companies so that others can learn from their experience – collaboration is fundamental to successful outcomes.”
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