The latest global Workmonitor survey by Randstad has revealed the need for diversity and gender equity among employees in Canada and more generally worldwide. However, women often remain in the minority in managerial positions and are sometimes less accepted than men.
While 58% of Canadian companies have more men than women in management and leadership positions, 88% of employees believe in diversity and gender balance among staff.
Globally, 64% of organizations employ more men than women for these functions. The countries where men occupy a predominant position are China (90%) and India (80%). However, an overwhelming majority of Chinese and Indian employees believe in gender equity at work, at 87% and 90% respectively.
In Norway, Poland and Sweden, equality is the norm as leadership positions are equally held by women as by men.
Boosting employment of women in leadership positions
In Canada, 40% of those surveyed have the impression that women don’t hold enough of this type of job. The countries where this trend is most pronounced are, once again, China (79%) and India (76%). In contrast, employees in Hungary, Denmark, Norway and New Zealand don’t feel this lack.
Quotas imposed on companies to promote recruitment of women in responsible positions are considered satisfactory by 68% of Canadian employees. Furthermore, the country’s employers encourage women to apply more than anywhere else in the world (74%), along with Australia and the United States. The countries where this supportive approach is developed the least are Hungary, Japan and the Czech Republic.
A man or a woman as boss?
To the question of the balance between sex and staff management, Canadian prefer to be led by a man (42%) rather than by a woman (32%). And only 36% of them think that a woman is better than a man at the head of a business. In the rest of the world, Spanish employees prefer to see a woman in a leadership position (57%) rather than a man (22%), 56% to 22% in Chile and 50% to 25% in Mexico. Those who think that a man would be better than a woman at the head of a company are in the majority in China (71%), Hong Kong (63%), India (66%) and in Malaysia (65%).
Remuneration in Canada: differing perceptions
Finally, for compensation, equity seems to be put last in the survey since 73% of Canadian employees think that their employer pays men and women equally. Only 28% think that women are paid less than men in equivalent positions. However, in the context of another Randstad study in 2012 which questioned women across the country, the majority of them felt that a difference persisted between men and women in terms of wages. More than 9 women in 10 in senior management or leadership positions felt they were paid less than their male colleagues…