Major banks listed on the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) have appointed three women for every man they appointed in the year ending December 2023, adding momentum to the race for gender equality.
Data on nine listed banks, classified as large, show that lenders have intensified the pace of hiring women. They added 1,979 female employees, bringing the total to 20,623, the first time the number has crossed the 20,000 mark.
The additional 1,979 female workers came during the period in which the nine banks added 694 workers, bringing the number to 22,818, meaning that three women were hired for every man hired.
The race to achieve gender parity in banking has seen Absa Bank Kenya, NCBA Group, KCB Group and Standard Chartered Bank Kenya close the review period with more women working than males.
This progress has come against the backdrop of these companies implementing policies and practices that promote gender equality, including equal pay for equal work, generous maternity and paternity leave, flexible working hours for new mothers, and providing advancement and leadership opportunities for women.
Between 2021 and 2023, the nine banks added 5,364 women to the banking sector compared to 4,605 male employees hired in the same period, indicating that the fortunes of job seekers in the banking sector are more towards women.
This trend is partly due to shareholders and financiers seeking to urge companies to make a positive impact on people and society even as they seek returns for their investors. This progress has put women on the right track towards catching up with men in participating in the banking workforce.
KCB led the group in adding women, increasing the number of female employees by 1,016 to 6,233. Thus, the percentage of female employees increased to 51 percent, compared to 47 percent in the previous year. This was an increase from 2018, when their share reached 43 percent.
Recruitment at KCB last year only saw the number of male employees rise by 107, meaning that for every man employed by the bank during the period under review, approximately 10 women were employed.
“As a result of our intentional efforts to embed diversity and inclusion in the workplace, the proportion of female employees in the organization has increased to 51 percent in 2023,” Paul Russo, CEO of KCB Group, said in the sustainability report.
The Cooperative Bank of Kenya has added 453 women to raise the share of female workers to 48 per cent from 46 per cent in the period in which it has hired an additional 263 staff.
NCBA has hired an additional 148 women to raise the quota of female workers to 51 percent from 50 percent, with the DTB group adding 120 women compared to 119 men to maintain the 50:50 ratio.
Equity Group has hired an additional 55 women to increase its share of the female workforce from 41 percent to 41.3 percent in one year when the number of male employees decreased by 18 employees. In Equity’s Kenyan unit alone, women now make up 51 percent of 1,446 employees. .
The lenders join other listed companies, including BAT Kenya and Safaricom, in increasing the number of women in senior positions.
Safaricom, for example, continued to make progress, hiring and promoting 19 people to senior roles in the year ending March 2024. This increased the proportion of women in senior positions to 42.4 percent, compared to 40 percent the previous year. The telco has already achieved a 50:50 gender split on its board, while the total workforce is now 49 percent women.
The Kenya Institute of Management (KIM) Board Diversity and Inclusion report shows that the share of women on NSE corporate boards rose from 12 percent in 2012 to 18 percent in 2015, 21 percent in 2017, and 36 percent in 2021.
At 36%, this figure is higher than the global average of 23.3%, according to KIM. The institute is working on a new report that will be issued later this year.
A 2022 UN report on gender equality in corporate leadership, which analyzed 3,246 companies on 35 stock exchanges in seven regions, including Africa, showed that Nasdaq (US) was the market with the highest proportion of boards headed by women (16 %), followed by NASDAQ (US). NSE (Kenya) and NZX (New Zealand) by 13 percent.
This progress has put women on track to catch up with men in terms of workforce participation as more employers adopt gender equality policies, while multiple studies show that companies with women on boards perform better.
A study by Catalyst, a global NGO that works to build women-friendly workplaces, found that Fortune 500 companies with three or more women on their boards significantly outperformed companies with low representation by 84 percent and 60 percent. And 46 percent. on return on sales, invested capital and equity, respectively.