Gender inequities in the workplace lead to talent being lost, poor decision making and lower profits, a professional development expert says.
A new survey has found 61 percent of women in leadership positions think gender equality at work has not improved or is worse than five years ago.
Professional development group Leadership for Good conducted the survey of more than 100 women working as leaders in New Zealand businesses.
It found more than half faced challenges balancing work and personal life and received unequal pay for equal work, while many experienced gendered micro-aggressions.
Founder and director Sue Watson said inequality is bad for business.
"Companies have often invested heavily to pull these women through their talent pipelines and then a third of them leave, which is an extraordinary waste of talent. Then we've got the impacts individually, three quarters saying it has affected their confidence, another half their mental health, another half relationships with friends and family and community.
"But the third impact on the business is the quality of decision making and McKinsey (a global management consulting firm) have argued through their research that companies that have a gender diverse senior leadership team are 50 percent more profitable than those that don't."
She said it was surprising women in senior positions still deal with these problems.
"I think there might be a perception of women who do break through the glass ceiling and break into senior leadership roles that these things are no longer an issue ... That's the surprising thing that even our senior women leaders are saying 'yup, still dealing with this'."
Watson said workplaces need better gender policies and practices, clear promotion criteria and stronger mentorship programmes to tackle gender biases.
She said Leadership for Good is offering the Connected Leadership Programme to help women leaders connect and break down barriers.
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