Kenya Beats US in Gender Equality in the Workforce as Standard Chartered Bank Tops

In decades of lobbying for gender equality, women continue to lag way behind with a worrying 22percent representation at the workplace in Kenya’s Corporate Management.

A freshly published report on gender equality at the workplace launched by the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) dubbed Equileap and New Faces New Voices reveals the worrying reports.

The Equileap and New Face New Voices report revealed that of the 60 companies listed on the NSE, there are only seven companies headed by women by 2019.

The Standard Chartered Bank Kenya came at position one with 63 percent while Nairobi Business Ventures tailed at three percent.

The report, released on 13^th November 2019, also shows that no company registered on the NSE has achieved the gender balance rule at the board level.

Women are not only lagging behind in the round board table, but they are also nowhere to be seen or felt in the executive, management levels and in the workforce levels, however, this not mean that there has been no improvement as the 23 percent has grown from 21 percent in 2017.

The Equileap and New Faces New Voices research took four areas into consideration when undertaking the study, namely: commitment, transparency, and accountability; gender balance in leadership and workforce; equal compensation, work-life balance and policies that promote gender equality.

The Equileap Chief Executive Officer, Diana van Maasdijk, noted that any company that earned 40 percent and above was performing well in ensuring gender equality among its workforce. Standard Chartered Bank in Kenya is hence within the top 50 companies worldwide which have a score of 61 percent or more.

Diageo, the company where Safaricom’s incoming CEO Peter Ndegwa works in as the head of operations, is the top-performing company globally this year after surpassing over 3,500 other companies according to the Equileap report.

Standard Chartered Bank has been praised for its policy on new mothers where women returning from maternity leave are allowed flexible working hours and locations to encourage them to exclusively breastfeed their babies for six months as recommended by the World Health Organization.

The Standard Chartered Bank is said to even allow lactating employees to work from home.

The grade for companies in Kenya and Canada is 26 percent with the report indicating that there hence lies room for improvement in gender equality at the workplace in Kenya.

Stanbic Holdings, Barclays Bank of Kenya and WPP ScanGroup are the only other companies that have met the balance of the four levels at the workplace.

Kenya has however been applauded for it is scoring way better than the United States in gender inclusion at the workplace as the US scores 25 percent despite being a developed country supporting the narrative that developing countries perform better in gender equality.

List of Companies in Kenya Ranking Top in Gender Equality in the Workforce

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