The startling responses, from both men and women, also found that a fifth of those polled felt their employers would not encourage workers to have both a family and a career, and that almost 2 in 10 still felt there was a tradition of patriarchy in the workplace.
The results, which coincide with International Women’s Day on March 8th, this year centered on the theme Be Bold For Change, demonstrate that there is still room for improvement in the working world, and highlight worrying hurdles to overcome in bringing about a truly equal work environment. When asked about people senior to them, over a quarter of respondents said they had never had a female manager, whilst 1 in 10 claimed that women are better suited to a leadership role than women. Almost a third of those surveyed also claimed that in their current workplace, less than 10 per cent of the leadership positions were occupied by women.
The new figures highlight the increasingly important issue of ensuring diversity at all levels of the workforce when it comes to equal gender representation. Despite this, almost a third of those surveyed disagreed that compulsory employment quotas were the right way to go when it came to ensuring women in leadership, with almost one-half saying they should be instituted in circumstances where it was clear change was needed.
The survey also found employees had their own ideas on how tackle prejudice and inequality in the workplace. Over two-fifths of those surveyed said that supporting women in leadership positions should be written into the DNA of a company, with equality to be defined as a clear corporate objective.
One-fifth said that prejudice toward women should be tackled directly by the company, whilst a separate one-fifth claimed that the selection process for leadership positions should be organised differently to ensure that women are just as likely as men to get into the top positions available.
Jobrapido CEO, Rob Brouwer, said: “On International Women’s Day, employers should be proudly planting a stake on the ground and celebrating the work achieved to make the workplace a more equal environment. However, these figures demonstrate there is disappointingly some way to go to ensure women are just as represented at the top as their male counterparts. Be Bold For Change is the subject of International Women’s Day, and workplaces have to make sure they change to ensure outdated attitudes are abolished. Patriarchy should not exist in a modern office environment, and I would encourage jobseekers and current employees to ensure they are in roles where they feel supported for who they are.”
