Gender inequality in companies' board of director analisys - Gueric Mayne

Gender inequality in multinational companies has always been an issue, but nevertheless, actions are being taken and nowadays, those same companies tend to reduce this inequality, especially in their board of director.

This analysis therefore aims at providing an approach in how those companies promote gender equality through the examples of Orange, AccorHotels, and L'Oreal Group.

Indeed, those three multinationals have a common vision on gender inequality but still, act in different ways and therefore, have different outcomes.

The question answered was exactly the same for each company: "What percentage of people on the company's board of director are women?".

Hence the metrics provided will generate a comparison in terms of context and achievements.

As far as Orange is concerned, women represent 33% of its executive and management committees which is overall 1/3rd of its board director in 2017. Furthermore, the company was ranked 4th of the CAC40 in France for the percentage of women leaders in 2015.

"https://www.orange.com/en/Infographics/Infographie-l-egalite-professionnelle/Gender-equality-at-Orange"

Orange is a telecommunication chain providing internet services which is, in other words, the technology and science sector. Indeed, this sector being traditionally masculine, stereotypes have been unfortunately developed which reduced the number of women succeeding in that field. Nevertheless, Orange took several initiatives in order to encourage women upon that path and now, 34% of its scientific/technical workforce are female which is also 1/3rd. This means that the metric of 33% which represented the percentage of women in Orange board of director, is almost equivalent to the percentage of women workforce in the company's main sector.

AccorHotels' percentage of women in its board of director is 27% in 2015. Gender diversity and equality is part of the company's Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility Charter. Furthermore, it entered the "HeForShe" solidarity campaign backed by UN Women.

"http://www.accorhotels.group/en/talent/our-philosophy/diversity-and-inclusion"

"The hotel industry, particularly the hotel business industry, is traditionally managed by men, for men" - Empowering Women article. This is why Sebastien Bazin, Chairman and CEO of AccorHotels pushes further for real change. Indeed, AccorHotel is one of the HeForShe project's ten pilot companies and support women to realise their career prospects. Another example of initiative within the company would be "Women At AccorHotel Generation - WAAG" which is an international diversity network that combats sexist stereotypes via internal awareness actions. In other words, AccorHotel has taken strong initiatives to help women realise their career prospects but still have 27% of women in its board of directors, which is mostly due to stereotypes within that sector.

Finally, the metric representing the board of director women's percentage at L'Oreal Group is 48% (7 out of 15) which is almost half of the board in 2015. Moreover, women represent 70% of the company's employees worldwide, again, in 2015.

https://www.diversityreport.loreal.com/en/key-figures-2015/

L'Oreal Group having traditionally been praising women, and having a strong feminine culture, has always have that female inclusion vision that other companies do not have. Indeed, women have always been the essence of the company and therefore, L'Oreal serves as a role model in gender equality management. Indeed, proof is that the company has been awarded the Grand Prize for Gender Diversity in January 2017. The company's initiatives have been successful even though it still can be improved, and women are really involved into the company. Another initiative that was taken was concerning the salary. The difference in salary between men and women has also been reduced and l'Oreal Group is still pushing further.

As far as the conclusion goes, it seems evident that those companies did not have the same environment, resources and action plan to achieve their goal but they still took actions in order to respond to that gender inequality issue. Indeed, the sector and the company's culture influences those actions and this is what those three companies have shown.

Gueric Mayne