Company boards can benefit a lot from gender mix

A gender balanced board. When including women in top positions ensure that they have ability to perform, have a good education and share the goals and vision of the organisation. FILE

By CAROL MUNYWOKI

    
It is evident from cases in different countries and boards that female representation in leadership is of paramount importance not only for workplace equality but also for better business results.

Reports from consulting firms show a correlation between women’s representation on boards and the financial performance of companies worldwide, pin-pointing a 30 per cent turning point at which women’s representation has a significant impact across a set of corporate performance indicators.

One of my white collar jobs in the US was finance officer in the Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering Department at the Advanced Highway and Maintenance Construction and Technology Research Centre, University of California – Davis.

The Management Services Officer, who played a big role in my getting the job, was a woman. She was one of a few women who headed departments in a field dominated by men. She dealt with most workplace personality issues. She had the ability to tap into her womanly instincts and run the department efficiently.

She was the one who many directors called when they had human resource issues, yet she was diligent on the financial and budgeting aspects of the department.

Behavioural science research indicates that the fairer sex is better at socialising and interaction with people than their opposite. Besides, a woman’s natural instinct is to nurture and help.

When I got back to Kenya I wanted to make my parents proud and attempted some unsuccessful farming. It came with a myriad of challenges and most of my casual workers were male.

They did not have good work ethics. They also did not respect me until I decided to practice the dictatorial style of management. So hired women instead — the results were evident.

Although they took longer, the work was done. And because they had children to fend for, they would show up the next day without me having to call them.
I eventually learned that the women — who were jobless and older than me — were honest, highly aggressive and reliable. Subsequently leading to men working a little harder.

This worked well for me — I wanted to work with high performing, short-term contractual employees. When it came to picking full time workers, I struggled with a few from my own tribe and it did not work.

I therefore hired help from western Kenya and the results were quite interesting. Not only did I learn so much about the Luhya culture but they also came in with different ways of working and thinking.

This was a clear indication that in a budding economy or business entity diversity is key to achieving sustainable results. Diverse persons bring different cards to the table with a number of schools of thought.

Faster growth

Nations that have embraced oneness and greatness invite people of vast cultures for faster growth. Gender based diversity, in a boardroom, would also reap similar results.

Walmart Corp is a huge and highly successful US business, but most of the time I have shopped there the staff seems to be ignorant or not adequately Walmart-educated.