Government Split Over Quota while German Top 30 Unite in Gender Commitment
Germanys blue chips presented their self-commited objectives for increasing the share of women in management at a summit meeting of the DAX 30 with the federal ministers Kristina Schröder, Ursula von der Leyen, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and Philipp Rösler. As expected, the individual ambitions vary greatly. However, the Media were barely interested in the public commitments.
Back in March, the companies had jointly declared that they wanted to increase the percentage of women in leadership positions. Now, they have provided specific figures based on each of their individual situations while covering different time frames. Five of the companies only declared their ‘commitment’ by setting a recruiting quota for themselves. An analysis of European Diversity Research & Consulting shows that one half of the companies have defined short-term goals (2-6 years) while the other half has set medium term targets (7-9 years). The different horizons, however, do not say anything about the level of ambition; in both groups modest and ambitious goals can be found. “Unfortunately, some of those overstretched goals can’t be obtained”, comments Diversity expert Michael Stuber. Companies with the highest per annum growth targets (realtive to the current situation) will have “enormous difficulties” in achieving those, since experience shows that even the best strategies won’t allow for more than 2 percentage points of increase per year – especially if an organisation starts from a low base level. On the other hand, some of the growth targets appear to be little ambitious, especially for those companies that already have 20% leadership positions filled with women. Only one company in the low ambition group currently has less than 10% female managers. In the upper-middle group (rated by ambition) there are two companies that already report more than 20% of women in leadership positions, namely Deutsche Telekom (worldwide figure) and Commerzbank (Germany figure).
In addition to specifying their targets, the companies announce to „continue the established working group for the next five years and to ensure results through mutual exchange of best practices” as well as publishing their activities and figures in their Annual or Sustainability Reports. Furthermore, the companies presented a series of measures to ensure the objectives will be reached. Besides mentioning traditional, and partly stereotypcial, approaches such as „Work Life Balance“, „Recruitment“, „Transparency“ and „Personal Development“, the portfolio also includes the commitment to a corporate cultural change process. According to experts, this was the missing element in many programmes of the past ten years.
While Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Mrs. Schröder considers her approach to be approved by the clear statements and as a result of her plans to introduce a ‘flexible quota’, the Minister of Labour, Mrs. von der Leyen, insists on her harsh criticism. Even the opposition parties who advocate for more women in management actually criticise the new achievements. Green Party leader Claudia Roth said the planned flexible quota was “embarrassing” and “pure self-deception”. No commitment in the past had led to any achievement, she claims. Former Deputy chair of the social party (SPD), Schwesig, also criticised the family minister: “Mrs. Schröder does not fight for women’s quota, but has been schooled by the Dax companies”. This kind of political skirmish isn’t well received in the Diversity scene. “The current contest between the Ministry for Family Affairs, the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Economic Affairs is reinforcing the misperception that the increase of women in management is a question of political power instead of economic reasoning and business imperative”, Michael Stuber wrote in a press statement claiming for “one clear, understandable and common message from the government and business leaders”. A clear-cut what-why-and-how would proivde the base for a value-oriented change process.
