Two separate studies conducted on the topic of women’s impact on businesses – one in Europe and one in the US – indicate that having women at the top of a company is good for the bottom line:
McKinsey research released a study showing better-than-average financial performance by European companies with the highest proportion of women in influential leadership roles. The study found that these companies do better than their sector in terms of return on equity, operating result and share price growth.
The management consulting firm also reports that companies around the world where a third or more of the senior team are women score higher, on average, than those with no women on nine criteria of “organisational excellence”. These criteria include accountability, innovation and work environment.
Recent research on the US boardroom indicates that Fortune 500 companies with the highest proportion of female directors are more profitable and efficient, on average, than those with the lowest.
Why?
It is not clear why this is the case. But what is clear is that there is one less reason to prevent women from climbing the corporate ladder; we’ve proven that, in Israel at least, women actually miss less work then men. And now, it seems that it can’t be claimed that women damage the bottom line either.
So…who wants to promote me? Nobody? Did I hear someone say to get back in the kitchen? Sigh.
