Today’s leaders understand that diverse teams add value to organizations, and that companies with a more equal gender balance substantially outperform those that do not. However, there is still a long way to go.
According to data from the Total Remuneration Survey 2021 of the HR consulting firm Mercer —in which 102 companies from Uruguay participated—, when analyzing the female representation at different levels of the organization it is observed that at the level of assistants there are 46% women and that the participation of women decreases as one progresses in the professional career, since there is a 38.6% of women at the professional level, a 29.4% in managers and only 13.8% in executive roles.
“We have reached 2022 and being a woman continues to be a topic of conversation, from the family culture, business, societies and countries. We would love for March 8 to no longer be a day to continue sharing data on the pay gap in active life, passive life, representation and health by gender as we have been doing for many years”, said Cecilia Giordano, CEO of Mercer for Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
Gender pay gap
When analyzing the data, it is observed that at the level of management, the gender wage gap is 15% in favor of men and from that level onwards it widens, and is 21% at the expert manager level.
merce
“We are going through a more than complex moment in terms of economic recovery and capitalizing on the challenges to which the pandemic has exposed. Those who do not have women in decision-making lose a key competitive advantage to make a difference,” he added. Silvina Prekajac, Client Development Leader at Mercer in Uruguay.
Diversity and inclusion are not only good for business but also good for society and have gone from proving the importance of gender equality in business to how to accelerate the trajectory and achieve it. In this sense, some Mercer recommendations for organizations are:
- Make diversity and inclusion not only a Human Resources priority, but also a business priority.
- Consider that leadership must start from the top for diversity and inclusion efforts to be successful.
- And as with any business priority, access to data is necessary to truly analyze and understand the challenges and opportunities – that is, what is holding women back and what can be done to better support them.
