女性商业领袖人数增加，但大权仍然掌握在男性手中
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纳特拉认为，从事经营管理岗位的女性之所以少，很大程度上是因为渠道问题。虽然全世界女性大学毕业生的人数超过男性，但大多数女大学生选择的专业却让她们在公司中更多地扮演辅助角色。2011年，美国取得数学或计算机科学专业学位的男性为41,000人，而女性仅有14,000人。在英国，有17,000名男性大学毕业生取得了工程学位，而女性仅有3,300人。这导致这些行业的许多管理者抱怨，具备必要技能可以直接聘用或提拔为经营管理岗位的女性太少。 瑞士信贷的报告还指出，父母强化了这种角色定型，因为他们会建议对科学和数学感兴趣的女性学生选择医学和法律等职业，而不是工程类工作。例如，在英国，有2%的父母认为，工程是适合女儿的职业，而认为这类专业适合儿子的父母则有12%。《财富》杂志（Fortune）之前曾经报道，相当多《财富》500强公司（Fortune 500）的女性CEO，均拥有STEM等专业的大学学位，这进一步证明了教育背景在成为未来高管中的重要性。 纳特拉补充道，招聘过程中的偏见也是导致经营管理岗位女性短缺的原因之一。更多女性从事人力资源、公关和法律等支持性岗位，会导致更多女性将这些领域作为求职首选。而影响力更大的经营管理岗位则恰恰相反，男性更有可能聘用同性求职者。 挪威等欧洲国家强制规定了董事会中的男女比例，以提高女性的影响力，各国也更加关注进入公司董事会的女性数量。瑞士信贷的调查结果证明，我们同样需要加大对从事经营管理岗位的女性数量的关注。单纯看数据，只能证明女性在打破公司玻璃天花板方面取得了一定进步。 跨国猎头公司CTPartners的CEO布莱恩•沙利文表示：“我们应该透过数字来看待这个问题。直接强制性地规定男女比例，不会带来深层次的文化变革，无法产生长期的、可持续的变化。公司需要从贯穿领导团队、地域和业务职能部门的全景角度来考虑，不仅要确保整个公司的多样性，而且要将其贯彻到每一个部门和每一项业务。” 沙利文提出的方案听起来非常合理。但就其效果而言，可能要在一段时间之后才能在瑞士信贷的多样性报告中有所体现。 纳特拉说道：“在短期内，提高董事会的性别多样性水平更容易。你只需要扩大董事会规模，由女性担任增加的职位，或者由女性代替期满离职的董事会成员。一夜之间改变高层管理岗位男女比例的难度则大得多。”（财富中文网） 译者：刘进龙/汪皓 |
The reason for the shortage of women attaining operation roles is partly due to a pipeline problem, says Natella. Although women across the world graduate from college in greater numbers than men, most female students choose to study disciplines that lend themselves to more supportive corporate roles. In the U.S in 2011, 41,00 male students graduated with a math or computer science degree compared to 14,000 women. In the U.K., 17,000 men graduated with an engineering degree compared with just 3,300 women. This leads to many managers in these sectors to complain that there are simply not enough women with the required skill set to recruit or promote into operational roles. Credit Suisse’s report also noted that parents are reinforcing gender stereotyping by advising female students interested in science and math toward a career in medicine and law rather than engineering. In the U.K. for example, 2% of parents think engineering is an appropriate career for a daughter versus 12% for a son. As Fortune reported previously, a significant number of women CEOs in the Fortune 500 graduated from college with a degree in the STEM field, bolstering the case for the importance of the educational background to becoming a future executive. Bias during recruitment may have something to do with the shortage of women in operation roles as well, Natella added. More women work in supportive functions like HR, PR and legal which could lead to more women wanting to work in those fields in the first place. The opposite can be said for influential operational roles, where men could be more likely to recruit other men. With European countries like Norway setting board quotas that mandate more female representation, there has been an increased focus on the number of women making it on to corporate boards. Credit Suisse’s findings prove the same attention needs to be on the number of women serving in influential operational roles. Still, a blunt look at the numbers only goes so far in showing progress in women breaking the corporate glass ceiling. “This issue needs to move beyond a simple numbers game,” says Brian Sullivan, the CEO of global executive search firm CTPartners. “Blunt mandates around the ratios of men to women will not provide the deep-seated cultural changes required to make a long-term and sustainable difference. Companies need to look across their leadership team, geographies and business functions to ensure there is diversity, not just as an overall company, but within each division and practice.” The plan Sullivan outlines sounds more than reasonable. But its results will likely take some time to show up in diversity reports like Credit Suisse’s. “In a shorter time frame, it is easier to improve the level of gender diversity in boards ” says Natella. “You can just increase the size of the board and add women as part of the expansion, or replace departing board members— as their term expires— with women. It is a lot more difficult to change the composition of top management overnight.” |
