Times are changing rapidly, and so is life for the working woman. In fact, the number of women who wish to work is steadily on the rise. In the US, 50% of the workforce is comprised of women. During the current economic downturn, men suffered 75% of all job losses, the first time when women performed better than men during such a bearish phase. Although a name like Indra Nooyi is known by one and all in business circles, when it comes to the higher echelons of the organizational hierarchy, the number of women can be counted on fingertips. Just 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.

What is keeping organizations from retaining their best female talent & promoting them to top management roles? Bain & Company, a leading global consulting firm recently conducted a global survey called “Gender Parity in the Workplace” of over 1800 men and women to learn more. The survey has thrown up some interesting results:

• While both men and women wish to lead, only 66% men and 30% women feel that women have equal opportunity to reach the higher ranks
• This is despite the fact that both men and women agree that women stand an equal chance to be recruited into junior level positions as men.
• Men tend to be more confident than women that their partner would make a career sacrifice. Nearly 80 percent of the men believe their partner would compromise on her career for the family’s sake, while only 45 percent of women said that their spouses or partners would do the same.

The survey brings to light that although women have gained ground on issues like disparity and harassment, they struggle on gender parity issues like career development and access to leadership roles. Also, few organizations have policies to rejuvenate careers of employees who return to the fold after a gap of a few years, which affects women adversely as they mostly perform the role of caregivers in the family. More than 80% women feel that gender parity should be a business imperative in an organization while only 48% men think likewise.

The survey further suggests two ways of tackling these issues:

• Making gender parity a strategic priority in the organization with complete support from the top management.
• Companies need to make their promotion processes  and career paths less rigid and should try to make the re-entry process for an employee seamless.

Companies which follow gender parity have reported a deeper, committed workforce, saving them millions of dollars by putting people on a fast track promotion path after their re-entry into an organization. Managing gender parity is not a luxury today – In these changing times it has become a necessity to ensure continued growth and success.