Women are significantly under-represented on corporate boards, and Canadian corporations should do more to increase board diversity, says a report published by the Canadian Board Diversity Council.
Women have as little as just over 6 percent representation on the boards of the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas sectors, and about 10 percent in manufacturing, according to the report.
The figure is higher in retail trade (18.5 percent) and finance and insurance (19.6 percent), and highest in the industry in the utilities sector (21.7 percents). In the non-profit sector, women hold 40 percent of positions.
“In terms of gender representation, females are significantly less likely than males to serve on corporate boards,” the report says.
The study looked at 206 of Canada’s largest organizations in different sectors as well as the nation’s top 100 charities.
Reflecting their individual opinion, 47 percent of corporate board members and 61 percent of charity board members said the issue of board diversity is very important. However, only 35 percent of corporate board members and 48 percent of charity board members said their boards consider board diversity as important.
“This may explain why only 22 percent of corporate boards have a written diversity policy,” writes Pamela Jeffrey, founder of the council.
The majority of directors on the boards that don’t have a written diversity policy don’t think their board needs one.
“I think that is a very important starting point for a lot of organizations to actually tactually do something,” says Nathaniel Payne, a Simon Fraser University researcher who contributed to the report.
He points to the report findings where 73 percent of board members in the five industry sectors examined believe their boards are diverse.
“I think there’s a disconnect between what is actually occurring and what is believed to be occurring,” Payne says.
“Starting to articulate a policy on diversity will get people thinking about what is going on.”
Payne says a diverse board benefits from having a “competitive advantage” by including members representative of their target market. Boards should expand their recruitment to look outside their traditional network, he says, so they can benefit from different approaches from people of various backgrounds.
According to the report, most corporate and charity board members “always” or “sometimes” consider diversity when looking into their personal networks for new directors. Less than half of corporate boards use the services of a recruiting firm when looking for new members, but the majority that do use these services provide direction regarding diversity.
The report also shows a gap in how male and female board members perceive the importance of diversity: 69 percent of women deem the issue very important, while 48 percent of men see it as very important.
A separate report published by the council shows that only 25 percent of the country’s top companies have at least 20 percent women on their boards. The report bases its results on responses received from 77 firms out of 220 surveyed.
Topping the board diversity chart is Husky Energy with 80 percent diversity. Corus Entertainment (64 percent), Cineplex (58 percent), and TD Bank (41 percent) are also among the higher scorers.
