Why empowering women is vital to a successful business

At Unilever, we are committed to equality, fairness and respect. Gender equality sits at the heart of the many initiatives we have in place across the company because we recognise the many benefits empowering women brings to every business. As Chief Customer Officer at Unilever, based in The Netherlands, I continually see first-hand how gender diverse teams achieve better results. In this blog I focus on this and describe just some of the ways we are closing the gender gap.

At the end of 2016, women comprised 46% of Unilever’s management team, up from 38% in 2010. Three women sit at the very top, on the Unilever Leadership Executive today: Leena Nair (Chief HR Officer), Ritva Sotamaa (Chief Legal Officer) and Amanda Sourry (President, Foods). I am proud to work for an organisation with a 100% gender-balanced Board.

The business, economic and social case for employing more women in leadership positions is made clear time and time again. According to a McKinsey report on gender parity, USD12 trillion could be added to the global economy by closing the gender gap.

However, there is clearly a great deal to be done before there is a fair and representative playing field for women across the globe. Statistics show women earn on average just 77% of their male counterparts. A disproportionate number of men are at the helm of global corporations; just 4.6% of the chief executives at S&P 500 companies are women and only seven women head up FTSE 100 companies.

We are bucking that trend at Unilever because we understand that empowering women brings huge benefits to the business and on the social front is critical to eradicating poverty and accelerating global development.

Our efforts have received recognition from The Times Top 50 Employers for Women 2014 and 2015, and in the top 10 FTSE 100 for female inclusion on boards. More recently, Unilever was awarded the Top 50 Employers Best Places to Work 2017 Employees’ Choice by Glassdoor.

The edge women bring to business

Women bring certain qualities and strengths that can be utilised to any organisation’s advantage. This is not to say that men do not or cannot display these also – fortunately many do!

In the words of our CEO Paul Polman:

“While this is not a gender-specific issue, authentic leadership relies, to a high degree, on self-awareness and emotional intelligence... women display far greater intuitive skills. They show they are able to concentrate more, apply themselves better, work harder and achieve more. Feelings, emotions and social awareness come more naturally to them.”

I strongly agree with these words. Within the Customer Development team at Unilever, we continue to see that gender diverse teams deliver much better results than more homogenous ones. This is thanks to the different approaches, strengths and skillsets that only a combination of diversity brings. Moreover, if you look at our consumers and shoppers, more than 70% are female. The insight driven from diverse teams allows us to bring real understanding and solutions to ensure growth.

Negotiation is a key part of what we do in Customer Development and women tend to excel here. I see negotiation as half persuasion, using facts, and half intuition, patience and experience in dealing with people. I have found that women normally drive a much harder deal than men. Patience is also key; women do not get put off by prolonged negotiation processes, and often come up with ingenious solutions to overcome deadlock. It is no coincidence that many retailers employ women in leading negotiating positions.

How we are empowering women at Unilever and beyond

Unilever has a comprehensive programme in place to ensure that our recruitment, retention and development of women is best in class. Here are just some of the initiatives we have in place.

• Agile working: The ability and support for women to work beyond the traditional office environment can greatly help in enabling mothers who have to juggle looking after their children with their careers. Unilever launched its agile working programme in 2008 and has invested significantly in state-of-the-art agile working facilities and technologies to enable location-free jobs.

• Flexibility: This is critical for women who need to deal with the day-to-day demands of family life. Adjusting the times you hold meetings to take into account parents who have school runs to do is just one way of providing this. For example, at our Unilever ETS Bangalore Centre, we have set up day-care facilities next to our sites to make it convenient for working parents to achieve work-life balance.

• Coaching and mentoring: Women can sometimes subconsciously limit themselves by not believing in their abilities, or may feel there are too many hurdles to make career progression possible. Providing mentors who women can relate to is a massive help in building confidence and providing examples that show just what can be achieved.

• Actively ensuring a level playing field: To help bridge the gap between men and women in top positions it is important that – whenever there is an open position, an equal number of highly qualified female and male candidates are put up for consideration. This protects the core principle of meritocracy while ensuring that both men and women have an equal chance of getting the job.

• Educate: Both male and female colleagues can benefit from seeing the difference women can make as leaders. Within the Customer Development team we have created a series of videos highlighting women in positions of leadership within Unilever. I think this is helpful in inspiring other women to strive for leadership and can give men a woman’s perspective on business. It also shows the fantastic contribution that women have made in driving our business to success.

We are also very proud to say that we are empowering women outside the organisation too - in the communities in which Unilever operates.

One way we are doing this is by offering women in developing countries microloans and training to become micro entrepreneurs. We work with non-government organisations to ensure we can scale enough assistance to reach communities far and wide.

In fact, working in partnership with others, we have helped 800,000 women to access initiatives that develop their skills since 2006.

Be part of the gender equality movement and reap the benefits

Together we can create an environment that enables every woman to reach her full potential. And not just because it is the right thing to do but because it makes sense to do so - the business, economic and social case is clear.

Gender equality benefits everyone and the businesses that embrace this have the most to gain. Unilever continues to lead the way in helping people to build their own path to success in a workplace that respects the rights of all its employees. Discover more by following us on LinkedIn.