Oluchi Chibuzor
A Hofstede Insights assessment of the state of diversity, equity, and inclusion amongst the leading 154 corporate organisations in the country has shown that 106 failed in its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) report for Nigeria in 2022.
The Nigeria DEI Report 2022 also showed that 31 per cent of companies passed while 69 per cent failed as against 2021 when 35 per cent passed and 65 per cent failed.
According to the report, 33 companies out 154 do not have women on the board, 41 companies had no female in their executive management, while 17 companies do not have women on both boards and executives positions.
The report focuses on four key parameters- gender, age, ethnic and educational background, to determine the level of diversity on management teams and boards of directors for each company.
According to the report, the top 10 companies with higher scores includes TotalEnergies, Transcorp Hotels, Transnational Corporation of Nigeria, Africa Prudential, Stanbic IBTC Holdings, Dangote Cement, PZ Cussons, Skyway Aviation Handling Company, Portland Paints & Products Nigeria, Julius Berger.
However, the report highlighted that there is still a lot of work required to improve DEI in the country, noting that there was marginal improvement in gender diversity when compared from the previous year report.
On age, the report noted that organisations have more work to attract, develop, sponsor, and retain future generations of diverse leaders at all levels as one percent of board members and six percent executives are below 40 years as against 92 and 76 years respectively.
Making the presentation in Lagos recently, the Regional Vice-President, Africa, Hofstede Insights, Dr. Okey Okere, said the level of diversity in Nigeria is very low considering the various parameters used in the report when compared from the previous year result.
He noted that more worrisome is that men still dominate corporate leadership with women comprising 26 percent of executives and 21 percent of directors in all the 154 organisations surveyed.
He said for Nigerian corporate companies to bridge these gaps they must introduce some easy organisational culture that produces innovation and creativity.
He said, “On average, there is failure on all DEI parameters except educational background as 154 organizations averaged a total of 43 points out of 100 on four key DEI parameters. On a year-to- year comparison of the report, there was a marginal reduction of total DEI points from 45 in 2021 to 43 in 2022.”
The Principal Consultant, Vel- Triplum Limited, Mr. Godswill Esangbedo, said the significance of diversity in both the private and public sector with respect to the age of leaders at the workplace as revealed by the report cannot be over emphasised.
“From the report you will see people who are 92 and 76 years old still working; so what is happening to the young people that means no space. To improve on this, there has to be an intentional effort by corporate organisations to create opportunities for young people, while there must be transparency in the government sector in job advertisement and enforcing retirement age, “he said.
