Foto: Microsoft

This is why some experts claim the crisis opened opportunities to bring more women into leadership, as their customer care and personal relation development skills can make a difference for companies these days.

Numerous global companies have been confronted with the need to change their business models, even prior to the crisis. One of them is the multinational computer, technology and IT consulting corporation International Business Machines Corporation (IBM). In 2002, it purchased the consulting division of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which brought major changes to the business, and in 2005 it decided to sell its personal computers division. Now, IBM is trying to see how the new opportunities created by the crisis on the corporate advisory business market can be exploited in order to boost gender equality and encourage female leadership within its top management ranks.

“Twenty years down the road, I’m certain we’ll say this [crisis] was the changing point for many firms in many directions,” Isabelle Welton, manager for marketing, communications and corporate citizenship for IBM in Switzerland and Austria told CBW. “We believe that one of these changes is women leadership and the fact that women can gain a higher role in the company structure. I’ve never thought about the opportunities brought over by this turmoil from that angle before—I have only thought about opportunity for business growth,” she said.

The way that companies deal with supporting female leadership skills is through identifying top talent early in their career. This involves the immediate line managers and company peers. IBM also has a gender diversity program which is aimed at spotting and building talents. “We have a history with diversity and gender diversity. It’s imbedded in the DNA of the company,” said Christel Verschaeren, director of transformation and adoption in the global CIO office of IBM. Verschaeren added that this isn’t only gender diversity, but also includes disability, race and other types of diversity. “We would treat people equally,” she said. 

Mentoring mothers

Even though women are more present in regular jobs, their presence in top management is still below average. “It’s true that the higher you go in the hierarchy, the fewer women you’ll observe. However, the trend is positive,” Verschaeren said, adding that over the years the company has been improving this situation. Yet, the growth should be organic, she noted. “Our fight is more a fight for talents than for a necessary gender representation,” she said.

Welton added that IBM’s new orientation “requires these female leadership skills and the opportunity is really there for women to advance in their careers.”

One of the tools used to retain female talent is to assign mentors during maternal leaves. “We have a mentoring program because we’re aware that coming back is very hard. A return is difficult not only from the perspective of knowing what you’ll be doing, but simply coming back to the company as such and fitting back into a company that is rapidly changing is a challenge,” Verschaeren said. For example, before a woman leaves, she would take a mentor to stay connected to the firm during her time away. “This is a way to keep connected to IBM, so that when they come back the barrier is lower,” she said.

Such tools are boosted by flexible work schemes in terms of time arrangements of the work place.  Welton noted that one of the critical aspects is that many women are on a certain career trajectory when they become mothers. “It’s very difficult to stop and it’s very difficult to come back. We definitely don’t have the perfect recipe for that, but we think about it,” she said.

Moreover, the local culture plays an important role in a woman’s attitude towards leadership. “You can’t deny that when you try to build culture within a company,” Welton said, adding that all over the world, women are very eager to make an impact. “This doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re very eager to make a career, but they are very much driven by values they bring to work,” she said. Thus, companies need to take this aspect into consideration when they want to promote female talent into top ranks and take the right measures to be an attractive employer, Welton said. “It’s not enough to promote the right talents in the right positions. What we want to have is the right balance at all levels,” Verschaeren concluded.