PwC ED Report: Women slow to rise to top positions in corporate SA

New research coming out of PwC South Africa’s 2022 Executive Directors Report shows that very little progress has been made in balancing gender representation in senior positions at top JSE-listed companies, since January 2020. 

According to PwC South Africa People and Organisation Reward Co-Lead, Leila Ebrahimi:

“We are all familiar with the setbacks Covid-19 posed to the equality agenda, but the world is normalising to a point where it is no longer appropriate to look for reasons why inequality persists.”

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To truly look at whether female representation is being appropriately addressed, in its Executive Directors report, PwC recently analysed new hires into vacant executive roles in JSE-listed companies in the last year, to assess the ratio of female to male appointments. 

The firm found that as at June 2022, only seven of the JSE Top 100 companies were led by female CEOs (compared to 5% across all listed companies in 2021), with the representation of female CFOs sitting at 19% (compared to 17% last year). 

Over the entire executive population of all JSE-listed companies, 15% is female (compared to 13% last year). 

Considering the continued lack of female representation, PwC researchers aimed to better understand what was happening in terms of appointments into vacant roles, where there is clear opportunity for immediate improvement. This is what they found that between January 2020 and June 2022: 

• There were 208 new appointments into executive positions across the JSE. Of these, only 53 (25%) were female. 
• In the JSE Top 100 there were 77 new appointments into executive positions of which 21 (26%) were female. 
• In the JSE Top 40 there were 33 new executive appointments of which 10 (30%) were female. 

The report also addresses the war on skilled female talent and looked at how many companies are struggling to retain their key and critical skilled female employees in the face of a serious bidding war. 

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Ebrahimi said: “In cases where the internal pipeline is lacking, women who have successfully ‘made it’ in other companies become targets for poaching. Without widespread, appropriate succession planning, the problem will prevail, particularly in the context of a wider skills gap and executive talent shortage.”

Change can be driven and accelerated in several ways. The report highlighted four key ways this can be done, including:

• Successful succession planning which goes beyond merely identifying appropriate individuals, but also requires companies to actively seek to fill executive committee and senior management roles with skilled candidates from designated groups.
  
• Understanding and developing organisational culture to ensure organisations are aware of the existing culture and listen to and engage with female employees to better understand their perceptions of their environment.
  
• Creating a supportive policy framework to support well-formulated, clear policies, and one which is assessed with diversity and inclusion objectives in mind.
  
• Accelerating the change process with KPIs and considering mentorship and skills transfer from existing leadership to female successors. 

Makhosazana Mabaso, People and Organisation Reward Partner at PwC South Africa, also weighed in on the topic. Mabaso said: “While we have observed that some progress has been made with increasing the number of female appointments to executive positions, companies also need to focus on how to retain female talent for longer periods.

“On average, female leaders spend between one and five years in their roles, compared to males who often hold positions of between three to eight years. In driving the retention of female talent over the longer term, employers need to take active steps to ensure that sound and effective succession plans are in place to cement a strong pipeline of female talent.

“Employers should furthermore ensure that conscious steps are taken to afford women, particularly those identified as future successors, with the opportunities to grow within their roles and areas of expertise.”