‘Gender fatigue’ exposes women to bias at workplace

“We don’t see gender diversity as a bolt-on,” said Jim Wall, chief diversity officer and global managing director, talent at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.

“If it’s bolted on it isn’t effective. With this particular approach (ie bolted on) you see a rapid adoption of a programme without changing the overall organizational context. It is not sustainable.”

He said mangers needed to be accountable to certain benchmarks.

“For example, in our firm we monitor if more women leave than men, do we promote women at the same rate as men, are women candidates for key leadership positions.”

Deloitte has introduced a “corporate lattice” concept to replace the traditional corporate ladder.

“It’s a relatively new approach. Organisations are no longer linear they are three dimensional. People move up, down, sideways depending on their needs and the needs of the business,” Wall said.

“Overall you measure output not input - hours of work are not important.”