Professional firm EY has backed International Women’s Day, which is tomorrow, and underlined its commitment to promoting females in the workplace.

And the company — a Pledge for Parity sponsor of the event this year — urged other employers to commit to gender parity.

Pete Cangany, senior partner at EY Bermuda, said: “Research shows that companies that optimise and accelerate their female talent perform better.

“However, the gender parity conversation cannot be one-sided.

“It requires real action by both men and women to recruit, retain and advance women in equal proportion to men and according to their potential.

Uschi Schreiber, EY global vice-chairman for markets and chairman of the global accounts committee, added: “The current direction and state of gender parity and diversity across all levels of business needs to be changed.

“At a time where business and government face unprecedented challenges due to technology and disruption, having diverse leadership and management is a necessary and critical tool to survive today.

She added: “We need our best talent from all areas to bring additional perspectives to complex decision-making — now more than ever.”

Mark Weinberger, EY global chairman and CEO, said: “Companies that advance women into leadership roles are going to have the upper hand, with more engaged workforces, stronger cultures and improved economic performance.

“We know that gender-balanced companies achieve better results. As business leaders we need to ask ourselves ‘have we made enough progress? Are we helping enough women find their way into leadership roles in order to make our businesses better?’.

EY has developed a series of pledges for IWD designed to provide people with practical steps they can take as individuals and within their organisations to advance women in business and in the wider community.”

Pledges can be made at the IWD website and EY said they encouraged people to galvanise others by sharing them on social media using the hashtags #PledgeForParity and #IWD2016.

EY also operates a “Women, Fast Forward” programme, set up to inspire people to put gender on their agendas and help organisations take concrete steps towards the advancement of women.

EY said a report the Peterson Institute for International Economics found that companies in only five countries have at least 30 per cent senior women executives, with only Norway exceeding the 30 per cent mark for women in the boardroom.

The research also showed that companies that hit the 30 per cent target could expect to see a 6 per cent increase in net margin.

But the world’s largest economic powers — the US, China and Japan — have failed to reach the top ten in female CEOs, women on company boards and women executives.