3 reasons gender diversity initiatives aren't working

There’s been little improvement in gender representation in company leadership over the past couple of years, according to a report released recently by IBM. And, with the pandemic’s gutting of the labor force and disproportionate impact on women, there are fewer candidates for executive positions among organizations’ lower ranks. The report identified three significant obstacles to effecting change: programmatic interventions that don’t address underlying mindsets and biases, overreliance on conventional approaches, and willingness to accept incremental change.

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IBM surveyed over 2,600 executives, middle managers and professionals between November 2020 and January. Women accounted for just 8% of executive boards and 10% of C-suite execs in 2020, according to the study. Those numbers are unchanged from 2019, while at every level below them, women represented a smaller share in 2020 than the year before.

The numbers are even worse for women of color. IBM noted that just five of the Fortune 500 companies have Black CEOs, only one of whom is a woman.

“Women want equal opportunities for learning, advancement, and career success, not shortcuts that pop them to the head of the line,” IBM wrote in the report.

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Programmatic interventions 

Organizations may be too willing to implement a program that pays lip service to increasing gender diversity, but doesn’t actually change the behaviors and attitudes that contribute to gender disparity.

The report found that more organizations are implementing more gender diversity initiatives, but a look at the 429 respondents who were also surveyed in 2019 by IBM shows that more doesn’t mean better. In fact, fewer of those “encore organizations” in 2020 said their senior executives are openly challenging gender-biased behaviors and language, or promoting high-performing women as frequently as high-performing men. Meanwhile, a quarter of women say their  organization has an “old boys’ club“ culture, while only 16% of men agree.

Related: Following bias accusations, lawsuit seeks corporate policy changes at Pinterest

Conventional approaches 

IBM found that only a quarter of organizations have made advancing women in their workforce a priority. Just 48% have set targets for gender equity — down dramatically from 66% in 2019. IBM noted that few organizations would go into other business initiatives like a new product launch without deploying all of the resources at their disposal, but they’ll rely on conventional tools like  training seminars to address the lack of diversity. The report cited research from Harvard University that shows the benefits of that kind of intervention lasts all of a few days.

“Employees are good at guessing the right answers, which results in superficial learning. Far more effective, the study found, is creating experiential and voluntary programs,” according to IBM.

Incremental change

“In strategy, the most successful businesses move in leaps, not increments. They set their sights on 10X improvements, not 10% growth, and they create the conditions for exponential change internally,” IBM wrote in the report.

Organizations need to use that same thinking when they approach gender diversity. IBM found that organizations that had done so reported revenue growth that was as much as 61% higher than other organizations, and a 22% increase in innovation over their competitors.

IBM offered several recommendations for actions that organizations can take:

• Instill accountability for gender equity at every level of management.
• Create a clear vision of success, and include employees in creating that vision.
• Evaluate partner relationships to engage external parties in the mission to drive gender equity.
• Create incentives to empower leaders to prioritize diverse and inclusive workforces.