Sponsoring Women's Success
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SPONSORING WOMEN’S SUCCESS Executive leaders’ views on sponsoring and mentoring CONTENTS 1 Foreword: Ann Francke, Brenda Trenowden CBE and David Mills 2 Executive Summary 3 Recommendations 4 Acknowledgements 5 Background to Sponsoring for Success 7 The Difference between Sponsorship and Mentoring 9 The Sponsorship and Mentoring Landscape in the UK 11 The Leadership Baton: Legacy Building Among Senior Executives 12 Seeking out High-Potential Talent 13 Career Benefits of Sponsorship and Mentoring 14 The Corporate Benefits of Sponsorship 15 Barriers to Sponsorship 17 Foundations of Sponsoring for Success 18 Case Study: Boosting Diversity in the Workplace FOREWORD: FOREWARD Ann Francke, Brenda Trenowden CBE and David Mills Foreword: Ann Francke, Brenda Trenowden CBE and David Mills Executive Summary ANN FRANCKE CMGR CCMI BRENDA TRENOWDEN CBE DAVID MILLS Chief Executive, CMI Global Co-Chair, 30% Club Head of Commercial Strategy and Sector Operations, Recommendations Russell Reynolds Associates In 2019, workplace gender diversity and inclusion executive committees. Senior leaders must act with conviction Acknowledgements retains its position as one of the critical business issues and address their workplace cultures to ensure that diversity that still needs to be fully addressed. Although women can thrive through the implementation of targeted diversity make up nearly half of the workforce in the UK, they still action plans. predominantly find themselves relegated to entry-level Background to Sponsoring for Success roles rather than management positions, with significant ADOPTING SPONSORSHIP AND MENTORING challenges working their way up the management pipeline CRITICAL TO INCLUSIVE ACTION PLANS to achieve a prized boardroom seat. The Difference between Sponsorship and Mentoring GENDER DIVERSITY BOOSTS GDP Critical to these inclusive diversity action plans is adopting and implementing talent management and succession planning The economic importance for diversity in a 21st-century approaches which may have traditionally been less accessible workforce is well documented: McKinsey report that bridging to women. Sponsorship, the practice of championing and The Sponsorship and Mentoring Landscape in the UK this gender pay gap could boost UK GDP by £150 billion by advocating to support a woman’s progression, is something that 2025¹.Yet the UK still struggles to keep pace with closing this only 3% of CMI’s female practising manager members report existing gap. receiving. Mentoring, a better-known practice designed to guide and support women, is still only received by just under 1 in 5 CMI The Leadership Baton: Legacy Building Among Senior Executives It is now over 20 years since the first female CEO was appointed female managers. to a FTSE 100 company, and despite some exceptional stories of success in the intervening years, progress to increase the Sponsoring for Success aims to reignite an essential, national overall number of women with executive responsibilities remains discussion ensuring corporates put sponsorship and mentoring Seeking out High-Potential Talent disappointing. As of November 2019 just 4% of CEOs and 7% of at the top of their agenda. This conversation must ensure that board chairs are female in the FTSE 350². women are provided by senior leaders with the support they need throughout their career, as identifying and nurturing talent WOMEN STILL UNDERREPRESENTED AT is a key aspect of any management role. Only then will we start Career Benefits of Sponsorship and Mentoring to get anywhere close to redressing the imbalances that are still SENIOR EXECUTIVE LEVEL so apparent in FTSE 350 companies. Although FTSE 350 companies hit a significant milestone of 30% This report explores the role that some of the UK’s most senior The Corporate Benefits of Sponsorship female directorships in September 2019, there are still 151 FTSE executives believe sponsorship and mentoring can both play 350 boards³ that have not yet reached that modest level, and in driving forward gender diversity in the workplace. Our report the lack of diversity at senior management level remains stark. makes some practical recommendations about how leaders, Both the 30% Club and the Hampton Alexander Review have set whether in the FTSE 350 or other large companies, can look to Barriers to Sponsorship targets to increase the number of women in senior management implement successful sponsorship and mentoring programmes positions by 2020 (30% and 33% respectively). In November in their organisations to achieve greater parity in executive 2019, there were just 28.2% women at executive committee and roles. In so doing, we fully acknowledge that considerations direct report level of FTSE 350 companies⁴: there is still much of ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, socio-economic Foundations of Sponsoring for Success work to do to achieve better gender balance at the top background and beyond are all part of the journey; and that of businesses. gender identities are themselves evolving rapidly. Whilst there is no silver bullet to resolve the diversity and inclusion challenge affecting some of the UK’s top companies, Case Study: Boosting Diversity in the Workplace there are steps that must be taken to ensure the pipeline of talented women have the opportunity to secure their seats on ¹ McKinsey Global Institute, The Power of Parity: Advancing Women’s Equality In The United Kingdom , September 2016 accessed on 21/11/2019 at: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/gender-equality/the-power-of-parity-advancing-womens-equality-in-the-united-kingdom ² Hampton-Alexander Review, Hampton Alexander Review 2019: Improving gender balance in FTSE Leadership, accessed on 13/11/2019 at: https://ftsewomenleaders.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/HA-Review-Report-2019.pdf ³ Data sourced from BoardEx (https://corp.boardex.com/solutions/) on the 19 November 2019 ⁴ Hampton-Alexander Review, op.cit. Sponsoring Women’s Success Report 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Our report, produced by CMI in partnership with • Senior leaders are generally supportive of the 30% Club and Russell Reynolds Associates, sponsorship and mentoring: nearly all (98%) of our provides an overview of the extent of sponsorship senior leaders had sponsored or mentored staff over and mentoring in UK businesses among managers the course of their career and senior leaders. It critically drills down to focus on the perspective of senior decision makers in UK firms ▷ For the majority (62%) involved in sponsoring the about the role sponsoring in particular should play in number one reason for becoming a sponsor was to the workplace, alongside mentoring, to support gender develop the next generation of talent, with 52% of diversity at an executive level. our senior executives looking for high potential in a sponsee. KEY FINDINGS • ▷ For those involved in mentoring, this was driven, for • Within our research we found that mentoring is a 72% of our senior leaders, by a belief that it was the concept that is well understood by senior leaders right time to share their skills and experience. As a and practising managers in the UK. However, with result the majority (83%) were looking for mentees the exception of the most senior executive levels, who displayed a willingness to learn. there is a weak understanding of the concept of sponsorship. • With sponsorship being less common in the UK, we explored our senior leaders views on the corporate ▷ 90% of our practising managers were able benefits of sponsorship to provide a definition of a mentor using key words around “advice,” “support” and “building ▷ 72% of senior leaders polled agreed sponsorship confidence.” supported the promotion of talent in the leadership pipeline. ▷ By contrast, 51 percent could not provide a definition for a sponsor: this means many women ▷ 66% agreed that it supported gender diversity in may be missing out on opportunities to progress the leadership pipeline. through the executive pipeline. ▷ 64% agreed it was critical for succession planning • Although most female senior leaders polled had in a company. been sponsored and mentored across the course of their career, only 3% of female practising • There are barriers to implementing sponsorship as a managers reported they are currently being formal programme within an organisation: but most sponsored and 19% reported being mentored. critical, as our interviewees report, one of the greatest barriers is an unsupportive tone from the top. ▷ The benefits of sponsorship for career progression are unquestionable: the key ▷ Only a fifth of senior leaders (21%) stated that career benefits for our senior leaders of being the businesses they worked with had a formal sponsored were general promotion opportunities sponsorship programme, compared to 86% who and increased influence which were selected by had formal mentoring schemes. 61% of senior leaders. ▷ Mentoring by contrast focuses more on short- term career goals and objectives: the key benefit reported by 59% of our senior leaders was increased knowledge. Sponsoring Women’s Success Report 2 RECOMMENDATIONS Sponsorship leads to promotion opportunities and enhanced influence, however there is low understanding and uptake in corporate business. Therefore we recommend that: 1. Sponsorship, alongside mentoring, must form part of a commitment to leadership gender diversity and be driven from the top. 2. Formal sponsorship programmes need to be developed as part of structured talent management programmes to support gender progression in business. 3. Businesses need