Gentlemen… we’re board-ready

In 2010, 56% of all the University of Malta's 10,737 graduates were women - part of a growing trend of a greater number of female graduates produced by the Maltese education system. The growth in women graduates was 6.6% over the previous year, while male graduates increased by just over four per cent.

While men dominated the brave new worlds of science, maths, computing and engineering, women graduates were dominant in pretty much anything else that did not require a white lab coat (save for medicine and the health sciences). And they compare well with their European counterparts, with participation rates in the various disciplines that are similar to many EU Member States.

So why - the European Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding has asked - aren't there more women taking the decisions at company board level?

"I do not accept the argument that there aren't enough qualified women to fill supervisory boards - you just need to look at the list of 7,000 'board ready' women that European Business schools published a few months ago to see that there are," Reding told a meeting of the European Industry Associations, European Business Schools and Senior Executive Women to discuss her proposal for mandatory gender quotas in company boardrooms. "The pool of talent is there - companies should now make use of it."

Despite Malta's majority of female graduates, only a few women actually make it to the top to break the old boys' network. In April 2012, a Sunday Times investigation found just three women on boards of directors amongst 135 men on the decision-making tables of the Malta Stock Exchange's 19 publicly-listed companies.

The gender gap is even wider when factoring in the Sicavs listed on the MSE. And in the extreme case of some private companies, many are those women shareholders prevented from joining the board of directors of family businesses which specifically preclude a female director.

Norway in 2003 established a 40% quota for women on its boards, and countries like France, Italy, and Belgium have instituted their own quotas. Women lead only 18 of the Fortune 500 companies, and according to research firm Catalyst, held only 16% of board seats at those companies as of 2011. Getting more women women on the board, Brussels argues, has to be mandatory.

If Reding wants to know what Maltese industry thinks of her proposal, the answer she got from Tancred Tabone, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, was that her one-size-fits-all proposal "may not apply to Malta", citing cultural issues and the availability of support for working mothers.

"Mandatory quotas would force entrepreneurs to get side-tracked from making the right decisions in the interest of their companies," Tabone told Reding last week at a meeting convened for European industry associations. "With quotas taking precedence over skills and competencies, female candidates may be given jobs on the basis of gender rather than academic qualifications and merit. This is also counterproductive for women's long-term career progression."

The fact is experts are still mixed over assessment whether quotas do work. Facebook's new chief operations officer Sheryl Sandberg's appointment comes at a time when many are asking whether women directors can really clock off at 5:30pm to go home to their children. A 2011 study from McKinsey & Company and the Wall Street Journal showed that companies with three or more women in top positions scored better on McKinsey's Organizational Health Index. But then again, a 2009 University of Michigan study shows that the performance of Norwegian boards suffered as a result of the quota - they took on more debt and their acquisitions underperformed.

Sticky floors

Not everyone will agree with Tabone, although the Chamber's president's suggestion of cultural differences only confirms what a National Statistics Office survey in 2007 found on the obstacles to women participating in decision-making positions, which shows women find it hard to reconcile long hours of work and family responsibilities, and find a lack of spousal support and very little use of childcare facilities - not just a glass ceiling, but also a 'sticky floor'.

Lorraine Spiteri, a managing partner of the Vista Coop and an executive council member of the Malta Confederation of Women's Organisations, knows that there are various structural, attitudinal and cultural barriers hindering women to come forward and reach the higher grades.

"The business community and the local economy in general are losing out on a very important resource," she says, just days after presenting an extensive report on Malta in a conference on women in economic decision-making in Oslo, which discussed Reding's proposal.

The report talks about Malta's traditional gender ideology, which still gives women a strong identity as caregivers, which is why so many female graduates in promising careers end up choosing motherhood over their professions later in life. Spiteri's report also stresses that many women are socialised towards a strong 'motherhood mandate' that is predominant in Catholic, southern Mediterranean societies.

"Different countries have found different strategies to promote women in decision-making, based on the diversity of each country. For example Scandinavian countries have a better climate to implement such measures and reap benefits over time than other countries where labour market patterns are more rigid due to tradition and culture.

"There is not enough awareness on what quotas are and how these work and therefore there is a strong resistance just by mentioning the term 'quotas'. There are many valid women who can contribute successfully to decision-making and since the number of graduates are also increasing year after year, finding valid and qualified women shouldn't be a problem."

It all seems like a simple proposal - if the pool of 'board-ready' talent is there, why isn't it being utilised?

Part of the resistance, as Tabone previously alluded to, is the perception that token women would only be undermining the meritocracy necessary to have directors elected by shareholders to company boards.

Tabone has also said there is more merit in diversity, rather than quotas, if a fuller support is offered to working women to achieve board positions based on their qualifications. "More measures must be sought to encourage women to retain their employment and a balance between work and family commitments should be encouraged and the appropriate structure made easily available," Tabone told Reding at an industry meeting held in June.

You can keep your bra on

He finds agreement from Marlene Mizzi, a prominent business leader who insisted on being dubbed 'chairman' during her time at Sea Malta, who fears quotas would favour quantity, not quality. She even echoes Tabone's suspicions that northern European models might not suit Malta, and that any gender imbalance here should be addressed through a temporary measure.

"I have always taken a stand against quotas because I believe that posts should be occupied by people who merit the position through their qualifications, capabilities, or experience, irrespective of their gender.

"But mixed gender representation in any group of people will deliver better results - whether on a government or corporate level. This is because men and women have innate different skills on how to deal with situations and problems, and both their skills are important contributions to the end result."

Mizzi, a former Labour candidate for MEP, claims a double-barrier exists for women who are not appointed to public sector corporations where directors are chosen according to political affiliation.

"I am quite sure that there are many 'board ready' females but mandatory quotas can backfire on the very cause woman are trying to promote. Should the woman given a post, fail to perform, just like many men fail to perform, her failure will be attributed to her gender rather than to her own personal capabilities.

"Unfairly enough, this does not happen with the case of men and this is a risk women will have to be aware of when accepting the principle of quotas. The perception of being a token female is an insult to any self-respecting female."

Mizzi takes this worst-case scenario further, saying women aware of their real potential but who receive a post due to their gender would feel they were being measured against "whether one wears a bra or not".

But the MCWO's Lorraine Spiteri disagrees.

"When a men fails, do we attribute this to his gender? Why should we assume that if a woman fails it is because of her gender and dismiss the fact that women and men are, above all else, human beings with diverse qualities and with more similarities than differences? Research has shown that women are just as capable as men, and are an asset to companies just as men are."

The MCWO remains most vociferous about introducing quotas in what is a generally unfriendly territory for having more women pushed to the top: even though political parties in Malta employ quotas, business associations like the Chamber of Commerce, the Employers Association and the small business chamber GRTU don't want to close the gender-gap under pain of legislation.

"In the light of the lack of initiatives to appoint women to corporate boards, mandatory quotas might indeed be the key to a better gender equality in Malta despite their controversiality," Spiteri notes, saying the law will have to be weighed in to force the change.

But aware of the Malta's slow pace of cultural change, the effort will require building a critical mass of women towards labour market participation, and into decision-making positions.

"With time, attitudes and expectations will change... the challenge would be to transform the boardroom's environment into a more women-friendly and a less hostile one with regards to difficult hours that might be in conflict with family responsibilities. Removing structural barriers will encourage women to come forward and accept to take on the extra responsibility of joining the decision making ranks."

Why does the EU want more women 'on board'?

'In these difficult economic times,' the Commission says, 'it is more important than ever to take advantage of everyone's skills: both female and male'.

There are four main reasons for breaking the glass ceiling on company boards:

1.         Getting more women into the labour market will make Europe more competitive.

2.         A growing number of studies show a link between more women in senior positions and companies' financial performance.

3.         The need for a level playing field: several EU Member States have started to act and have introduced legally binding quotas for company boards.

4.         Europeans strongly support better gender balance. 88% say women should be equally represented in top business jobs and 75% said they were in favour of legislative measures to enforce this.