Index can help boost women in leadership
- The Women’s Workplace Index will track company policies and data on maternity leave, equal pay and flexible work, as well as their efforts to fight harassment and other issues while offering an accreditation scheme that makes data available online
Hong Kong sets great store on external measures of its competitiveness such as economic freedom indices. Now it is to be home to a regional index of women-friendly company workplace policies.
The Women’s Workplace Index aims to become a public database for tracking the progress of Hong Kong and Asian companies. Those to sign up as members so far include Sino Group, CLP Power, Linklaters, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Manulife.
WWI founder and chief executive Nicole Yuen says it will collect data on policy and practice on issues such as maternity leave, equal pay and flexible work, and against sexual harassment. Importantly, the index also will act as an accreditation scheme that makes data available online.
At present, tracking of company policies can be limited to female representation on boards and among executives.
Yuen says WWI is not just about representation in management. “There is still not much progress on making workplaces conducive for women to straddle work and caring responsibilities,” she said.
New index to track women-friendly workplace policies in Hong Kong, Asia
Ironically, the end of the pandemic reinforced gender disparity, according to a recent survey of about 5,000 mid-market companies in 28 countries by global advisory firm Grant Thornton International.
It found that the trend of return to office had deprived many women of flexible arrangements, a key to empowering female leadership.
Gender equality is not just about tapping society’s full potential. According to Moody’s Investors Service, more female participation in the labour market or management is important in the face of global economic headwinds.
It says narrowing of the gender gap in the labour force after 2019 added US$1.5 trillion to global income.
Women accounted for 19 per cent of board seats in Hong Kong-listed companies as of October 2023, compared with 16 per cent in 2022, according to US-based financial indices provider MSCI.
Thanks to a Hong Kong listing rule requiring companies with all-male boards to introduce at least one woman board member by the end of 2024, the number should continue to rise. Better representation of women at management level can only produce more board candidates in the long run.
