WUNRN
WOMEN MANAGEMENT TALENT FOR EMERGING
MARKETS
By Rahim Kanani - 9/06/2011
Recently, I interviewed Sylvia
Ann Hewlett, founding president of the Center for Work-Life Policy and Ripa
Rashid, executive vice president at the Center for Work-Life Policy, co-authors
of Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets: Why Women
are the Solution.
Describe a little bit
about the motivation to write and origins of Winning the War for Talent in Emerging
Markets: Why Women Are the Solution.
The idea sparked a few years ago,
when one of the members of our Hidden Brain Drain Task Force, a consortium of
67 global corporations and organizations focused on talent innovation around
the world, suggested that we explore the issue of underutilized female talent
in
These BRIC markets together
represent 40 percent of the world’s population and have accounted for 45
percent of global growth since 2007, compared with 20 percent from G-7
economies. But there is a critical obstacle to their continued expansion: a
cutthroat war for top talent.
To meet the talent shortage,
multinationals have long followed the same well-trodden path: sending homegrown
managers overseas, looking for (mostly male) foreign nationals educated in
North America and
The answer, however, is hiding in
plain sight. Across the developing world, women are increasingly outperforming
men in the tertiary education system: In Brazil, 60 percent of college
graduates are women; in
Educated and ambitious, these
women are determined to put their credentials to work. Over 80 percent of women
in
We tend to think of
With respect to women,
paint for us a more thorough picture of the labor dynamics in emerging markets
such as
Women are among the biggest
beneficiaries of the expansion in emerging markets – and one of its key
engines.
Brazilian women are being hired
for corporate senior management positions in far greater numbers than in the
The
It is often noted that there are
two
When Deng Xiaoping instituted
market reform and declared that “to get rich is glorious,” he urged
What prevents emerging
markets women from achieving their full potential?
Working mothers in the BRIC
nations are able to think big and aim high because they have more shoulders to
lean on than their American and European peers. Between hands-on extended
family, inexpensive domestic help and an increasingly wide range of daycare
options, professional women in these geographies are not sidelined by
motherhood.
But even the smartest BRIC women
face a series of family-centered “pull” factors and workplace-centered “push”
factors that conspire to force them off the career track.
Traditional family values come at
a high cost. Childcare may not be a burden but eldercare is. Fully 70 percent
of highly qualified BRIC women have significant eldercare responsibilities.
Unlike in the West, in there’s a huge stigma attached to placing parents in
assisted living. In fact, “daughterly guilt” often exceeds “maternal guilt” as
professional women in emerging markets struggle to balance career with
responsibility to elders. With demographers projecting a leap in the percentage
of the population aged over 60 across these regions, this burden is only going
to increase.
Discrimination is an ongoing
issue – in both local and global companies. Gender bias continues to limit
women’s careers. In
Extreme jobs are another
challenge, with 60 hour-plus workweeks common. In
Finally, safety concerns are a
harsh fact of daily life for professional women in these countries: Close to a
third or more feel unsafe getting to and from work, and that number rises to
over 50 percent in
The book discusses the
need to employ different kinds of strategies to recruit women in emerging
economies than those used in developed markets. What are some of those
differences?
Employers can attract and retain
top female talent by creating and promoting programs that directly answer their
needs.
Take work-life balance, for
example. HBSC in
Another difficulty in developing
and sustaining talented women in emerging markets is the lack of female role
models. Companies like Cisco, GE and Intel sponsor networking events for their
women employee resource groups in China and Southeast Asia in which
participants can strengthen the communication skills needed to grow and succeed
in a multinational corporation, nurture their confidence, forge crucial
connections, and engage mentors.
Lastly, employers can step in to
alleviate the pushes and pulls that force women out of their careers. Google
Could one use this
economic theory as an approach to breaking gender barriers in social, cultural
and political spheres of developing markets?
Absolutely. In many of these
countries, employers can implement change more readily than governments. Once
the gender barriers are broken in the microcosm of the workplace, new opportunities
for women can blossom in the wider social, cultural and political spheres.
Sylvia Ann Hewlett is an
economist and the founding president of the Center for Work-Life Policy (a
nonprofit think tank), where she founded and now chairs the “Hidden Brain
Drain” Task Force, a group of 67 global companies and organizations committed
to fully realizing female and multicultural talent. She leads the CWLP’s
advisory services practice Sylvia Ann Hewlett Associates. She also directs the
Gender and Policy Program at the School of International and Public Affairs,
Columbia University and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda
Council on the Women’s Empowerment.
Ripa Rashid, an executive
vice president at the Center for Work-Life Policy, has worked across Europe,
the