Increasing gender diversity is a strategic imperative

Following the release of our Switzerland diversity & inclusion survey, Christian Atkinson, Country Head at Robert Walters Switzerland, had the pleasure of interviewing Alkistis Petropaki, General Manager at Advance – Gender Equality in Business*. They discussed the ways in which the system makes it difficult for women to be promoted and why gender diversity will be crucial for business success in the future. In this article, we have selected some extracts from this interview. 

Christian Atkinson: "According to the results of our survey, 75% of female executives in Switzerland believe that, as a woman, it is more difficult to be promoted. What is your view?" 

Alkistis Petropaki: "It is the ugly truth, if you want to be promoted, it is definitely better to be a man. We at Advance are publishing a Gender Intelligence Report in cooperation with the university of St. Gallen every year, where we see that the underrepresentation of women in promotions starts already at the bottom, meaning that there are less women promoted from non-management positions to the first management level. I find this very interesting, because we can assume that at non-management level, women and men have the same skills and the same experience, so for me, this is an indication that often, promotion decisions are not based on merit, and also that the current promotion practices are actually discriminating women."

C.: "What do you believe diversity brings to the workplace? Why is it such a strategic imperative for business leaders?"

A.: "In my opinion, there are two types of companies. Those who have understood that diversity is paramount and will survive in the future, and those who will not. This might sound exaggerated, but it isn’t. If we know one thing about the future, it’s that we don’t know anything. The future is getting more and more complex and more and more unpredictable, and the only strategy to survive in such an environment is diversity, with a maximum of skills to be prepared for whatever the future brings. Today, we still tend to prepare for the future with what we know from the past, so to me, diversity is a huge competitive advantage. It is not a problem to solve, but rather a solution on how to survive in a changing environment." 

C.: "Do you believe that there are any skills or abilities common to all women that enable them to be successful in management positions?"

A.: "Science is not conclusive on this point. Some say that there are no differences between men and women, some say that men and women do have gender specific characteristics in their leadership styles, e.g. collaboration or empathy are characteristics that are rather associated with female leaders. In my opinion, the differences rather come from the personality of the person, I think that the perception of gender specific leadership styles comes from the fact that today’s business world is not diverse at all – and I am not talking about numbers, about men being by far over-represented, I mean that those men all have very similar personalities. I believe that diversity is desperately needed in business, and I hope that some time in the future we’ll stop being so concerned about our anatomy and that we’ll focus more on diversity and personality and skills."

C.: "What advice would you give to ambitious women who want to reach leadership positions?"

A.: "Actually, I do not want to give any advice to women, but to the companies. My advice is to stop trying to fix the women, but to fix the system instead. We are making a big mistake by thinking that the way to increase gender diversity is to teach women how to do things like men. Let me tell you a little story, a couple of days ago, I was talking to the CEO of a company, who told me that they had done an analysis and discovered that there is a gender pay gap in the company. To address this, he was planning to send female employees to a negotiations training, so, again, trying to fix the women instead of the system. Of course being a strong negotiator is a good skill to have, but at the same time, there is evidence that women negotiate as hard as men, but they do not get the same results, because the person they are negotiating with is biased. An HR manager once told me that women should not get the same salary as men because they would only spend it on handbags, whereas men use their salary to provide for their family. You can imagine how difficult it would be to negotiate your salary with this person. I truly believe that fixing the system is what we should focus on and which will allow us to make a lot more progress than we have been making in the past."