Growth in the take-up of chartered accreditation for management consulting is delivering progress on gender balance in the profession. However, Ann Francke, CEO of the Chartered Management Institute, says that by her estimates 560,000 female managers are still missing from the ranks, and most of them are missing from senior posts.
How can buyers of consultancy services navigate their options? This question has long loomed over the consultancy sector and in 2018, the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) and the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) partnered to address this very issue.
Our goal was clear: to establish and uphold the highest standards in management consultancy. This collaboration led to the creation of the Chartered Management Consultant (ChMC) accreditation, now recognised as the professional benchmark for a consultant’s abilities.
Qualified and trusted
In 2023 alone, our ChMC community grew by 60 percent, and the investment made by firms in helping consultants to pursue chartered status rose by 75 percent. Through accreditation, we are focused on ensuring that clients can confidently seek out the services of qualified, trusted advisors whose technical excellence is underpinned by a commitment to ethical practice.
To date, almost 1,500 consultants have achieved chartered status, with a further 4,000 on their journey, and over 50 leading consultancy firms involved. Our research shows that nine out of 10 management consultants believe that a ChMC qualification enables them to showcase both excellence and credibility to their clients.
And we are working together to change the face of consulting. Of those who have achieved chartered status so far 55 percent are women, 27 percent are from an ethnic minority, and 15 percent have a disability; however there is still much to be done.
Discrepancy in attitudes
Although a growing number of women are entering the industry, many are not staying long enough to rise through the senior ranks, owing to several factors.
We don’t have to look far for clues as to what is holding women back. The latest government gender pay gap data shows that nearly 80 percent of UK employers pay men more than women, due largely to a lack of women in the most senior positions relative to men.
Our latest research points to a worrying discrepancy in attitudes towards the advancement of women.
‘Gone too far’
We found that about 33 percent of male managers – three times the number of female managers (13 percent) – think that gender balance efforts in the workplace have gone too far, and 62 percent of male senior leaders believe that it is not important for them to have gender-balanced management teams at a senior level.
We are clearly seeing a gender divide emerging. Men appear to be tiring of talking about gender equality. They think they have “been there and done that”, yet the research tells us that what they are doing is not delivering results. For instance, here in the UK, 13 years ago, 40 percent of managers were women. That was in 2011. Bearing in mind that women are just over half the working population, you would expect that in a decade, we would have made significant progress. But our research shows in the interim, that number has risen by just one percentage point, to 41 percent.
‘Say-do gap’
If the aim is equal representation, then the UK’s management ranks are effectively missing 560,000 female managers, and most of them are missing from the senior ranks, including in the consulting industry. We call this the ‘say-do gap’ that exists across UK workplaces. While organisations and managers may believe they are promoting inclusivity, complete with slogans and the requisite posts on International Women’s Day, the evidence is telling us that women and other underrepresented groups still face significant barriers to progression.
We need to move beyond paying lip service to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and make a genuine commitment to addressing existing inequalities, including through clear target-setting and data collection to ensure that publicly-stated goals are being met, and that senior leadership is held accountable for progress. The Boston Consulting Group, for example, has committed to a 50:50 male-to-female ratio.
Training delivers
Our latest research tells us that trained managers – not just in EDI-specific training but wider management training – deliver more inclusive workplaces with better, more successful organisational outcomes. Employee satisfaction is higher, leading to better retention rates – a key sticking point for women rising through the ranks in the UK’s consulting industry.
This is just one area where the chartered management consultant accreditation plays its part. It delivers for individual consultants and their firms by providing formal recognition of their expertise, and ensuring they are high performing and more responsive to the needs of their customers and communities. And it also helps to shape an increasingly inclusive future for the profession.
