Women seek greater transparency at workplace

08th March 2018
Women seek greater transparency at workplace

International Womens' Day special
London, March 08, 2018: Although CEOs recognise the importance of being transparent about their diversity and inclusion programmes to build trust, the message isn’t universal and strong enough. 45% of women believe an employee's diversity status (gender, ethnicity, age, sexual preference) can be a barrier to career progression in their organisation, and only 51% of women
To improve career development opportunities, women identified greater transparency (58%) as the critical step employers can take. This means offering staff a clear understanding of the expectations on both sides of the employment equation, including information about career progression and success, and open conversations with employees on where they stand and what is expected of them to advance.
To mark International Women’s Day surveyed over 3,600 professional women (aged 28-40) to find out about their career development experiences and aspirations. The survey included respondents from employers across 27 industry sectors and from over 60 countries worldwide. The report – Time to talk: what has to change for women at work – reveals that women are confident, ambitious and ready for what’s next, but many don’t trust what their employers are telling them about career development and promotion; or what helps or hurts their career.
Of the 41% of women who had been promoted in the past two years, 63% negotiated for a promotion. And of the 53% and 52% of women who had been given a high visibility project or stretch assignment in the past two years, 91% and 86% had negotiated for these opportunities. Self-advocacy pays off and a move to greater transparency combined with workplace and personal support will act to bolster this further.

Says Sharmila Karve, PwC Global Diversity Leader: “It is really encouraging to see that more and more women are speaking up and proactively going after their career goals. Organisations can do a lot to help women progress and reach leadership positions, for example by encouraging more open career conversations, mitigating the impact of any potential unconscious biases in decisions related to career progression, and explicitly setting uniform and transparent criteria by which employees are assessed. Providing advocacy and support programmes such as mentoring and sponsorship helps too.”

On March 5  2018, PwC launched its latest Women in Work Index. This index ranks 33 OECD countries on a weighted average of various measures that reflect female economic empowerment, including the equality of earnings, the ability of women to access employment opportunities and job security.

  • Download the report here.