The XX Files
It’s a new year and the cusp of a new decade. In boardrooms and management suites, pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical executives are asking each other how their companies can develop innovative new products and turn a profit in the coming years. Here’s my unsolicited advice: hire more women managers.
Traditionally underrepresented in the workforce, women now account for half of all US employees, according to a report by the Center for American Progress. At least half of the US workers at Genentech (South San Francisco, CA), Genzyme (Cambridge, MA), and AstraZeneca (London) are women. Before we congratulate ourselves, though, we should note that only 17% of senior managers and 34% of middle managers at life-sciences companies are women, according to the E.D.G.E. in Leadership study of November 2007. What’s more, the study noted that these percentages hadn’t changed significantly in about five years.
Research reveals that companies have compelling business incentives to hire women for their leadership teams. Advisory firm Catalyst published a study in 2004 that showed that companies with the most women on their senior-management teams were able to pay their shareholders 34% more than companies with fewer female managers.
And in October 2007, a group at the London Business School concluded that teams with equal proportions of men and women produce more innovations than do unequal teams. When women have proportional representation, the whole team feels safer and is more likely to experiment, according to the study.
It’s true that pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical manufacturers, recognizing the lopsided composition of their workforces, have hired more women recently. But I think we need to smash more glass ceilings. If the research is sound, boards of directors have good reasons for welcoming women to their ranks. The results would likely be good for drugmakers’ bottom lines, and probably good for patients, too.
Random statistics and facts. While I admit that a balanced workforce does any company good, it is about the skills and experience and not where your organs are.
The reference to the London Business School does not delineate between types of organizations and companies, so it is difficult to take these as facts. Selling textiles and pharmaceuticals are very different arenas.
The glass ceiling is not the issue here, talent is.
Hi, Hectormon. Thanks for reading and commenting on my post.
I think that the data I cited are not random, but quite relevant to the topic. Examining the proportion of women in low- and high-level positions helps us evaluate whether women’s presence in various segments of the workplace mirrors their share of the greater population. If women account for slightly more than half of the world population, but only 17% of senior managers, we have an imbalance.
You’re right to point out that skills, experience, and talent matter in hiring decisions. Your observation is an argument in favor of hiring women as managers. Women demonstrated academic skills by earning two-thirds of the graduate degrees, 60% of master’s degrees, and about half of doctorates in the 2007–2008 school year. Executives have observed that women in the pharmaceutical industry remain calm under pressure, are organized, deal well with obstacles, and are good facilitators.
I agree that the pharmaceutical industry is not the same as the textile industry, but I believe that women’s abilities do not limit them to working in one or the other. The group at the London Business School that found evidence in favor of gender-balanced teams studied men and women working in various sectors, including the automotive, biotech, consulting, education, financial-services, insurance, manufacturing, media, and technology industries.
Womens’ talents, the observations of researchers, and industry professionals’ experience all seem to indicate that hiring more female managers would benefit everyone involved.
Dear Erik,
Thank you for commenting on hectormon. I am hitting the glass ceiling right now, together with other women of my age who have been very succesful and experienced in science but who are delayed in their carreer because of having a blooming family life. My understanding is that male senior manager are reluctant to hire women in the highest positions because they cannot recognize the same, male, features as they think a senior manager should have. Although the male senior manager can recognize unique outstanding qualities in a female candidate, they simply discard them because they do not observe the same leadership characterics of a male leader. Therefore time after time they discard the female option. This prejudice out of ignorance is terrible and can be helped on its way out by well documented articles like yours.
[...] addition, each of us should honestly examine our own attitudes and encourage others to do the same. As I’ve written previously, our companies stand to benefit from gender balance. And equality could help us achieve our [...]