BAT’s award validates corporate gender mainstreaming

In the early 1990s when the gender equality crusade was gaining traction in Kenya, the corporate world did not consider it worth their attention, maintaining that business was devoid of gender dynamics.

Today, it has gone full circle and considers gender mainstreaming a prime driver of profitability, good governance and ethics. It is in this light that the Gender Mainstreaming Awards sponsored by Accenture are celebrated. Ntombi Mhangwani, associate director at Accenture, notes that “companies could grow by 10 per cent if they hire and promote more women”.

Of interest is that a Kenya-based company, British American Tobacco (BAT), was named the gender mainstreaming champion for Africa in 2022, being a category winner for Women’s Empowerment in the Workplace and a runner-up under Mainstreaming Gender and Disability.

The first recognises organisations that have advanced women in their workplaces through training and capacity building, and transformed corporate behaviour and practices.

The second “acknowledges companies that have strategies in place to allow for future disability programmes or that implemented sustainable disability programmes, which have enhanced skills and provided employment opportunities for people with disabilities”.

Also read: Kepsa policy to enhance workplace gender inclusivity

The 2021 BAT Kenya Annual report captures the gender mainstreaming strategies used. The organisation has a Women in BAT (WiB) program, which aims to equip women with resources to help them navigate their professional and personal lives, through informal coaching and mentorship, professional development, networking and enhancement of opportunities.

It has a Junior Women in Leadership programme, which focuses on enhancing leadership capabilities and offering support and coaching to female talent for career progression.

The company also has flexible working arrangements based on an August 2021 policy to encourage better work life balance for employees. This is reinforced with increased use of technology for official interactions and learning.

There is also a student mentorship programme, which rotates around collaboration with educational institutions to better prepare young talent for the job market.

In terms of gender balance, 36 per cent of BAT Kenya’s Board of Directors are women, making it one of the most gender-diverse listed entities at the Nairobi Securities Exchange.

Also read: A toast to 2022 gender parity champions

The staff complement is 42 per cent women with perfect parity at senior management level, an improvement of 18 per cent from 2020 attributed to deliberate internal and external “talent brand engagement initiatives”.

This exceeds the company’s global target of 45 per cent by 2025.

Notably, however, factories and operations are exclusively male domains, demonstrating a traditional and historical pattern. Female staff account for 36 per cent of finance, another traditional male domain.

Under legal and external affairs, women outnumber men slightly with a proportion of 56 per cent.

Human Resources is predominantly female, while Digital Business Solutions is male-dominated. In marketing, 58 per cent are women.

On this, BAT needs to recognise the historical stereotyping of the function as a female domain complete with tendencies of objectification and exploitation through what sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls “emotional labour” in her book, The Managed Heart: Commercialisation of Human Feeling.

To deal with pay gap differences, BAT trains line managers in “how bias can impact recruitment right through to salary conversations and progression opportunities” to reduce workplace prejudices. It also has a tool for monitoring departmental pay equity filtered by gender, among other variables.

The company also reports its gender pay data annually to demonstrate accountability in closing gaps, based on principles of equity but taking into consideration talent, experience, longevity and performance.

Pay disparities

BAT has noticed from its analysis that the male population of workers tends to stay longer in the same pay grade than females, a finding that energises it to invest in increased retention of female workers.

It also notices that at certain levels, the female complement earns higher pay than male counterparts even though they have stayed a shorter time in the organisation, but attributes this to performance. This reveals that BAT conducts rigorous analysis of its data to not only show gender disparities but also their causes. Based on this, it makes informed decisions.

The work of BAT East Africa is aligned with that of the global company, which has set the goal to increase the women’s portfolio in leadership to 40 per cent and in management to 45 per cent by 2025.

It also invests in recruiting, developing and retaining the best female talent and requires a gender-balanced long list of candidates to select from, to increase their chances of proceeding to the next levels.

It further ensures that gender and other extraneous factors do not influence the pay package of employees doing work of similar value and who are entitled to similar packages.

The steps by BAT demonstrate creative, meaningful and customised gender mainstreaming initiatives that other corporate entities could learn from instead of relying on clichéd approaches such as quotas.

Dr Miruka is an international gender and development consultant and scholar ([email protected])