The research is clear - having more women at all levels of an organization leads to better outcomes. Numerous studies have been published that show the impact women across all levels of an organization lead to better business outcomes, from innovation to EBIT to profit.
When I interview at a company, I look for clues as to their commitment to women. Their collateral, words, and pictures paint a story on multiple levels: Do they have any women on the board or in key leadership positions? Do they mention any commitment to inclusion or pay equity in their letter to the shareholders or in their values statement? These help me form an initial assessment of the company’s gender diversity efforts and interest.
I am not alone. Many other women are interested in knowing if their organization is intentional about attracting and retaining women.
The ideal gender mix on a team
Just like you generally will not generate the best results with a team of all men, the same holds true with a team of all women. Rather, the best performance comes with gender diverse teams.
My conclusion after a great deal of research is that companies should aim for a minimum of 20% women, with a targeted 50/50 split at all levels in an organization for true balance.
Why 20% minimum? When a group falls under the 20% threshold, they can be more easily dismissed, overruled, or steam-rolled.
Passing the 20% mark is where the real change begins. At this point there is enough strength in numbers to effect change and impact with enough voices and opinions to be heard.
What can companies do to attract and retain women?
A good place to start is to move from talking about diversity to doing something about it such as creating a culture, programs, and policies that attract and retain women, from parental leave to transparent pay. Employees can tell the difference between mere talk and true commitment.
Here are 6 areas to explore, along with examples of best practices from several companies:
1. Measure and report the number of women in leadership positions
A strong signal that diversity and inclusion is important to the organization is if they track and report key metrics. These might include fill rates of jobs by women at all levels in all departments, promotion rates of women, attrition rates of top ranked women, gender pay data, and percentage of executives that are women.
In 2011, SAP set a goal to have 25% female leaders by 2017, 28% by 2020, and 30% by 2022. They hit their 2017 goal six months ahead of schedule and are on track to meet their other stated goals. They named two females to their executive board in 2017, Jennifer Morgan and Adaire Fox-Martin.
As of this writing, Square has women in 45% of their executive positions, spanning all departments.
Eventbrite has women in over 40% of their employee positions and in almost 40% of their manager roles.
Accenture targeted 40% of new hires to be women by 2017, and hit their target a year ahead of time. They want a 50/50 gender balanced employee base by 2025, and they want 25% of their managing directors to be female by 2020.
2. Close the gender pay gap
Several companies have taken a tops-down approach to addressing the culture and environment of their organization to close the gap of women in their workplace. They know that one test is if there is true equity in opportunity and in pay.
The latest U.S. Census data shows movement is beginning to happen in closing the pay gap. Women now earn 80.5% of what men make, representing the first time this ratio has increased since 2007 when a woman earned $0.796 for every $1.00 made by a man. Many businesses are actively working to close this gap, and over 3000 have signed a gender parity pledge with Glassdoor.
Salesforce has been vocal about their commitment to close this gap, and recently spent $6 million in adjusting the salaries of 25,000 professionals.
Adobe also identified a pay gap between women and men, and made a correction so that women and men are both paid equally.
Intel also reports they closed pay and promotion gaps for both women and minorities by the end of 2015.
Cisco is another company that has publicly stated they will address pay discrepancies when they learn of them as part of their “Future of Fairness” initiative.
3. Create Programs and Policies that support women
I’ve seen a few effective programs, including assigning mentors, creating support programs such as shadowing, and offering development opportunities so women can gain exposure to what happens at higher levels, and conversely so executives can gain exposure to women at their company. These programs also provide technical and soft skills training to grow more women future leaders.
Any manager or team should be able to implement initiatives such as these. Other programs, such as implementing flexible schedules, could also fall under local governance.
Wider ranging policies such as parental leave or childcare are more complex and most likely require headquarter approvals due to legal, budget, and insurance implications. Even so, employees or women’s groups can present business cases to upper management in order to garner tops-down attention and investment.
Many companies are putting practices in place that could be adopted elsewhere. One that stands out is Salesforce which requires 30% of all attendees to be female in their executive management meetings. What does this mean when there are not enough females at the ‘right’ level to attend? Females at lower levels are invited to attend and get exposure to higher level meetings, information, and exchanges.
4. Deliver benefits for working parents
More companies are adopting working conditions that make sense for working parents, especially around maternity leave, paternity leave, and child care. It makes no sense to hire young women just to lose them because of a poorly thought out maternity leave policy, yet I hear about this happening often.
Flexible policies also send messages that the company is progressive, creative, and committed to the well-being of their employees. Companies who add more weeks to their maternity leave, enjoy a higher return to work rate, which translates into cost savings for the company along with increased employee satisfaction.
The good news is that companies are catching on, and are recognizing that an investment in this area makes them attractive and competitive. A few who are doing this well are Adobe, who has been offering 26 weeks of parental leave for mothers and 4 weeks for fathers for a few years already, Twitter who offers 20 weeks of parental leave for all parents, and Microsoft who offers 12 weeks for all parents.
5. Create a Zero Tolerance policy for Harassment
Theoretically, biases should disappear with more diversity at the top of organizations. Both men and women must speak up when we see an issue, act when we need to, and take responsibility for creating an environment where everyone can contribute and thrive.
When an individual or a group feels diminished, they can’t bring their best effort forward. The entire organization suffers from a lack of full participation.
The University of Geneva launched an anti-harassment campaign in June of 2018 with a multi-pronged approach for both staff and students. Its goal was to create “a professional and educational environment in which equality, respect, trust and compassion prevail.”
One component of their initiative is to raise awareness is through posters around campus, a sampling of which are below:
6. Create a tops down culture of respect
CEOs need to set expectations from the top down, and model a culture of trust and respect. Group and company leaders also need to demonstrate they have truly internalized the value of women on staff and in leadership positions.
Leaders should actively identify and remove barriers that have been consciously or unintentionally erected that prevent women from joining a team or from staying at an organization. If they don’t know what these inhibitors are, ask!
The women I‘ve worked with don’t want to complain. Instead, they want to be active partners in creating and contributing to a best-place-to-work environment.
At various feedback sessions I’ve attended, I’ve heard a range of suggestions from women ranging from on-site child care to more attractive parental leave, and from pay transparency to requiring at least one female candidate in the succession plan for every senior level position.
I don’t believe there is a one-size-fits-all answer for all companies, but I do believe organizations need to make hiring and promoting women a priority, and the existing women at their workplace can help them prioritize areas that will make the biggest difference.