Many companies failing their senior-level women: BCG Study

Many companies are "failing" their senior-level women, as nearly 75 per cent of companies have lower levels of employee engagement among female senior managers than their male counterparts, says a study.
According to a report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) titled 'The Rewards of an Engaged Female Workforce', senior-level women at many organisation are less engaged than their male counterparts.
The report examines factors that contribute to engagement levels for more than 345,000 male and female employees at companies worldwide and calculates overall engagement scores.
The report found significant gender-based gaps in a number of areas that are critical to engagement, including mentorship, appreciation, and co-operation with colleagues.

"In a country like India where we see large scale post-maternity drop-outs, it is crucial for companies to engage with women employees, thereby fostering a sense of belongingness for their company," Kanchan Samtani, Partner and Managing Director, BCG, India said.
The report shows, the gender gap in engagement emerges as employees become more senior.

Among junior employees in companies in the bottom three quartiles of engagement scores, women and men demonstrate similar levels of engagement -- 3.8 for female non managers and 3.7 for male nonmanagers.
At the manager level, women (3.8) are nearly identical to men (3.9) in those companies. The biggest gap occurs at the senior-manager level.

According to the report, there are seven critical areas to employee engagement -- appreciation; work life balance; co-operation and good relations with colleague; mentorship, sponcership; compensation and promotion opportunities; job attributes; company objective and aspirations.
"Senior level women want to be paid well, enjoy their work, feel connected, express their opinions, and see that senior executives are living the company's values. If companies improve in these areas, they can increase the success and happiness of women in senior management position and promote more women into C-suite," Samtani added.