Cranfield Female FTSE Board Report 2016

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The Female FTSE Board Report 2016

Targets for Gender Balance

In addition, from April 2017, larger employers will also need to publish their mean and median gender pay gap; the proportions of men and women in the four quartiles of their organization; and their gender bonus gap. These regulations will increase gender pay gap transparency.

“Board membership is driven by engaged Chairmen and pipeline development is driven by engaged CEOs. The CEO holds the power and needs to be utterly committed to the development of women in the organization in a way that is measurable and reportable.” What has been most interesting to observe over the past five years is how organizations have come to recognize the value in using gender targets, initially unpopular when Lord Davies announced the 25% for women on boards, to instigate the change that many varied initiatives had thus far failed to do. In February 2014, Lloyds Banking Group became the first FTSE 100 company to establish a formal gender target to address its executive pipeline. They very publicly announced a target, i.e. that 40% of their top 5,000 senior management roles globally would be held by women by 2020. A number of other financial institutions have subsequently followed suit and in March this year, a report into financial service firms of all sizes, 18 concluded: “So we recommend that every Financial Services firm operating in the UK be encouraged to publish its own inclusion strategy and targets on an annual basis – and that progress against these internally generated targets be reported. We recommend that this strategy is owned and driven at Executive Committee level by a senior member of the Committee responsible and accountable for its design, execution and success. And we propose that success against these internal measures forms part of the annual bonus outcome of all senior Executives.” – (FTSE Chairman)

– Jayne-Anne Gadhia CBE - CEO VirginMoney