In 2012, McKinsey published Women Matter 2012: Making the breakthrough, the fifth in its series of studies on the progress of women in senior business positions. This new study was carried out in eight European countries —Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom—and involved 235 companies, more than 40 in France, and half of these listed on the CAC 40 Index.
The good news is that European companies are clearly taking gender diversity seriously: 53 percent of the companies studied have made it a top ten strategic priority and senior management is committed to the goal in 92 percent. However, in most instances, concrete results are slow to materialize and the implementation of fresh measures is not always adequate.
The analysis of the most successful companies—those is which senior management comprises women at 20 percent or higher—indicates that three key elements make the difference:
- maintaining strong commitment from top management and ensuring it is visible at all levels
- developing indicators to monitor progress and ensuring these are used to constantly improve the measures taken
- catalyzing the cultural shift and speeding the evolution of mind-sets within the organization