With the West Midlands region producing economic output that puts a lot of European Union countries to shame, having access to leading-edge people management services is critical. The Career-Mums Partnership has launched to support employers make the most of female talent.

Businesses with a greater gender balance financially outperform businesses with poor gender balance. Yet most businesses have less than 10% of women on their senior leadership team, the gender pay gap is still prevalent and maternity discrimination is rife. It doesn’t make business sense to take a passive approach to gender imbalance. If you don’t think that it applies to your business, just stop and have a look around. Who are the decision-makers? Who has the power in your organisation? Who is doing the 20% of work that generates 80% results?

And now ask yourself, what could we achieve if we had a better gender balance?

There are two key factors preventing improved gender balance:

1. History

We have lived in a male-dominated society since the dawn of history. So why change it? Because women have not had their full opportunity to show what they can achieve on a level playing field. There have always been boundaries to their success. Many individual women have broken through the glass ceiling and showed that they are as financially acute, physically strong, emotionally resilient and politically adept as their male counterparts, but even in 2016 these tend to be the minority rather than the majority.

So what’s holding women back? Almost everything. In the UK, girls, on the whole, do well in education, with more females graduating than males year on year. But the career expectations and aspirations of girls tend to be less than boys, and by the time that young adults have started working, there is already a difference in pay which gets bigger as careers progress. With the exception of the most gender-balanced organisations, the ways in which work is structured and organised tends to favour the progression of men rather than women.

It’s human nature to make assumptions about each other. In a historic, male-dominated world, our assumptions are based on our previous experiences, which fuel the male pre-dominance. Causing disruption and creating awareness is useful to highlight the impact of our history. Unconscious bias training is an effective intervention to start creating awareness amongst managers and leaders.

2. Babies

Fact: women have babies! Not all women and not always in the plural, but the fact is that women have the biological task of incubating new life. This won’t be news to you, but it often comes as a shock and surprise to employers leading to panic, defensiveness and strange behaviour when an employee announces that she is pregnant.

Having the biological kit to produce babies has a huge impact on the career prospects and earning potential of women, sometimes referred to as a ‘womb penalty’.

Employers who are able to take a long term, strategic view on employing women and find ways to nurture good open, supportive relationships during times of maternity can minimise the impact of this penalty. A more enlightened employer will support new parents, mums and dads, regardless of gender, and look at ways to provide the time, space and flexibility for all employees to be the best parents they can be. This will be paid-back through loyalty, commitment and productivity and gives a healthy start to our future working generation.

Of course, this comes at a cost, but if the more gender-balanced businesses are performing better, can you afford not to?

Career-Mums provides a range of services to support your business to attract, retain and develop your female talent. Speak to us on 0121 717 4728 to find out how we can help you.