Bjørn – BCG’s newest report on diversity focuses on the Nordics – how are we doing?
“We typically view the Nordic countries as diversity pioneers globally. But that is actually not the case anymore. If we start by taking the gender perspective, the Nordic countries are being outpaced globally on female leadership share and females are far from the business critical decision making. As an example, Sweden is currently the only Nordic country in the top 50 globally on female representation in leadership.
When looking at diversity related to sexual orientation or national origin, we see similar challenges in the Nordics. 20% of Nordic LGBT+ are not open at work and more than 1 in 10 often have negative experiences. Similarly, ~50% of largest Nordic companies primarily generate revenue outside Nordics, yet only ~20% of the executive teams are from outside Nordics.”
What are the main challenges that the Nordics face?
“There are many different challenges, but I would like to highlight two. The first one is related to recruiting. Unfortunately, we see low diversity in the typical leader-generating study lines such as science, tech, engineering, and finance. This lack of diversity is further magnified by the fact that companies typically recruit from just few study lines or schools. The reason is that companies want to minimize their recruiting risks, but the narrow recruiting pools also mean missing talents from diverse backgrounds.
The second challenge is about structures and policies encouraging traditional behavior. Parental leave schemes are often skewed towards females and flexible working models for leaders have not been very prevalent due to high expectations for leadership presence.“
Why have we still not overcome the diversity challenges?
“I think many companies and organizations are trying to push the diversity agenda ahead today. But the main challenge is that many companies and organizations focus on ‘fixing the problem’ instead of leveraging diversity to capture business value. Only 11% of the public diversity approaches for Top 30 Nordic companies have a clear focus on value creation from diversity with tangible initiatives in place. This makes companies deprioritize efforts as they don’t have a good understanding of the underlying business case for investing in diversity. Diversity should not be a HR topic. The core business must be in the driver seat as diversity should be the priority of the whole group, not only of HR.”
What surprised you the most when working on this topic?
“In our research, two insights stood out. The first one is that NONE of the 120 Top Nordic CEOs are openly LGBT+. This is a clear sign of a bad culture where CEOs don’t feel comfortable about their sexuality and lack of LGBT+ role models. The second insight is that Denmark ranks #102 on women in leadership measured as % share of legislators, senior officials and managers. This is a few spots after Zimbabwe at #90. A fact that would surprise most danes – including me.“
Download the report:
“Finding the Value in Diversity:
Diversity and Inclusion Isn’t
Just a Fix”
