Human Resources Issues for Senior Management
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/538291
26/CANADIAN HR STRATEGY I f you were to look around your company's boardroom, you would likely fi nd a table full of look-alikes: Educated, white males — all with similar backgrounds, social circles and golf club member- ships. Chances are good there is nary a woman to be found. More than 40 per cent of the companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange do not have a single woman on either the board of directors or the senior management team, according to a recent Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) analysis. There are even companies in the retail space that do not have a single wom- an on the board — yet they're selling primarily to women, said Maureen Jen- sen, executive director and chief administrative offi cer at the OSC in Toronto. "These are real problems," she said. "We looked around and we saw that 50 per cent of the talent in Canada was not being utilized and not being har- nessed… it was just such a wasted opportunity." That's a central reason why the OSC published a rule amendment regard- ing board diversity in October of last year, which took effect Dec. 31, 2014. "We saw a lot of boards that were same-old, same-old — boards that had made a lot of mistakes… Financial business in Canada is a small town and we saw a lot of the same people on multiple boards, so we saw a lot of over- boarding," said Jensen. "We wanted to have a graceful solution for Canada and we're not comfort- able with quotas." The OSC rule will require any company listed on the Toronto Stock Ex- change to provide disclosure regarding director term limits, policies regarding the representation of women on the boards, their consideration of how they factor in female representation, any targets that they have around it, and the actual number of women on the board and women in executive offi cer posi- tions, said Jensen. OSC rule presents shining opportunity for boards amidst growing shareholder activism, global pressure for gender diversity Perfect The By Liz Bernier PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK Storm Perfect Storm Perfect Storm