Factors Affecting Career Progression of Women in the Corporate Sector: a Case Study of Standard Chartered Bank in Nairobi

Abstract

The emergence and determined survival of women in high flying jobs today in corporations and organizations depends on their own willingness to confront and fight strong barriers and hurdles that stand their way, some too grave to confront and others less weighty. The main objective of this study was to investigate the factors affecting career progression of women in corporate sector using a case of Standard Chartered Bank in Nairobi. The study was guided by four specific research objectives: examining the perception of management towards women‟s career progression; establishing if balancing work and family responsibility impacts on women's career; identifying policies and practices which discourage women‟s career progression and measuring the factors which impede the career development of women employees at Standard Chartered Bank. The study adopted a descriptive research design. A representative of 60 respondents who making up more than 10% of the population for questionnaire administration and three focused group discussions of 5-8 women employees. Primary data was collected through questionnaires, key informants and focused group discussions. The collected data was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences and presented using mean, frequencies and standard deviation. The study concludes that at the management at the Standard Chartered has a positive perception towards women employees and as a result this perception affects female employees‟ career progression to a large extent. The study also concludes that the human resource management policies do embrace female employees and that the Human resource management policies at the Bank promote a balanced employee work life as well as affect female employees‟ career progression to a great extent. The study concludes that the difficulty of balancing work and family life also results in a higher degree of stress related, among other things. The study recommends that as a first step toward achieving gender equality and promoting the career progression of women, organizations can encourage the hiring, retention, and advancement of women by adopting work/life policies such as daycare centers for new mothers, work adjustments hours for new mothers to mention a few.