Research conducted by the Chartered Management Institute and XpertHR reveals that men are more likely to be promoted to a senior management position with higher pay, than women. The high profile and widely documented recent reports of women being paid significantly less than their male counterparts, highlights that more needs to be done to close the gender pay gap and the need for more women to get into leadership positions.
CMS VOC examines how, with the right training and support, more women could get into higher paid management roles.
Men more likely to be promoted than women
The Chartered Management Institute’s (CMI) research shows that male managers are 40% more likely to be promoted into a higher roles with more responsibility and better pay. The study involved analysing the salaries of over 60,000 UK employees. It concluded that during the year 2015 – 2016, 14% of men in management positions were promoted into high roles, compared to just 10% of women. The study also showed that for managers who had stayed with the same employer for the last five years, 47% of men were promoted compared to 39% of women.
The gender pay gap
Reiterating the findings of the CMI’s research about gender promotional and pay inequality, was recent government data that showed 74% of medium to large companies pay higher salaries to men than to women. The research found that just 15% of businesses with more than 250 employees pay higher salaries to women.
In light of the recent pay gap revelations, new rules have been implemented, forcing companies with more than 250 employees to reveal and address pay differences between male and female employees.
Why more women need to get into leadership roles
The recent controversies about gender pay gap and promotional discrepancies highlights how more needs to be done to get more women into leadership roles.
To help women compete with men into managerial promotions and the highest positions, they need to have the opportunity to be sufficiently trained and mentored for advancement within an organisation.
As Tracey Howe, chief executive officer of NSW Council of Social Service, writes in The Guardian in a feature about how getting more women into leadership roles will encourage others to step up:
“Women’s leadership is so important in ensuring that more women are in positions where they have the authority to decide and negotiate on issues that affect them.
“At the moment, the unfortunate experience is women are routinely – often through unconscious gender-bias – funnelled into less advantageous areas of an organisation’s operations.”
How the right training and support can help
By offering the right training and support, organisations will nurture more favourable environments for female leaders. Encouraging women to embark on leadership training and courses, such as a CMI First Line Management course, or, for women already in a management position who have authority and are looking to be promoted, a CMI Level 7 Strategical Management and Leadership course, would help give women the opportunities to fairly compete with their male counterparts for higher roles with better pay.
And with numerous studies revealing that organisations which have more women in leadership positions are considered as “higher quality” companies, with better returns on equity, encouraging and supporting women to rise up the company hierarchy, makes sound business sense.
This blog post was written by Hadyn Luke, Director of CMS Vocational Training (CMSVOC). CMSVOC offers a vast range of courses and training programmes, including CMI Level 3, Level 5 and Level 7 management and leadership courses.
