Australia's Governor General, Quentin Bryce, has backed the introduction of quotas as a tool for increasing the number of female directors on Australian company boards, saying that affirmative action was the only way to break into the old boys' network.
The Governor General's support for quotas comes as the strategy gains significant momentum as Australia celebrates the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day.
Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey has put forward a proposal for a quota of 30%, while Federal Minster for the Status of Women, Kate Ellis, says the Government will conduct an audit in 18 months time to decide if quotas were necessary.
But both stressed quotas would a "last resort".
Nevertheless, the support of powerful female leaders such as Bryce is likely to put more pressure on the Government to act.
In an interview with Fairfax, Bryce said that while the ASX had made strides to improve female representation at board level – including the introduction of a requirement for companies to state whether they had female directors and if not, explain why – more needed to be done.
''I believe the old boys' network is a powerful one,'' she told Fairfax.
''No one gives up power and privilege willingly, do they?"
''One of the things that is being discussed in Australia now... is whether or not there should be quotas for the representation of women on boards, and there are women who support that and there are others who don't... I believe that in certain circumstances quotas are a valid measure.''
In October last year, research from the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency revealed that women hold only 8.4% of ASX 200 board positions and 8% of executive key management personnel positions.
More worryingly, just 4.1% of line management roles – the jobs considered to represent the pipeline for executive key management roles – are occupied by women.
However, new research suggests a lack of female managers doesn't just create gender balance problems for businesses – it also means they aren't being run as well as they could be.
In a new Australian Institute of Management Survey of 3,026 executive, participants were asked to rate their manager's strengths across 16 performance indicators such as leadership, decision-making and customer focus.
On every measure except one, women managers scored higher ratings than men – the exception was the area of "problem solving", where women and men managers were ranked equally.
Women easily outpointed men in the area of communication skills (women scored 52% to men 36%), emotional intelligence (38% to 22%) and the particularly important area of "managing people and performance" (39% to 29%). Women managers were also perceived to be much more supportive than men (56% to 46%).
The chief executive of the Victorian arm of AIM, Susan Herron, says organisations will need to do more to stop what she calls the "female brain drain".
"More than 50% of Australia's tertiary graduates are women, yet less than 15% of our senior executive ranks are filled by women – that underutilisation of talent is simply not sustainable."
The survey also suggests small businesses may be doing better at encouraging female leadership than their larger counterparts – micro organisations with one to four staff were the only businesses to employ more women than men (53% to 47%).
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