women in the workplace Archives

Women in the Workplace: How to Retain Female Talent

January 10, 2022/DEI Diversity Equity Inclusion, Employee Experience, Employee Well-Being, Hiring and Retention /by Gladys Simen

Millions of Americans have left the workforce due to the ongoing public health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. This situation has particularly impacted female employees who had to become the primary caretakers of their children when schools and daycares closed. As a result, many women had to leave their jobs, and companies lost some of their most outstanding employees. Now companies need to spend time deciding how they can better accommodate, empower, and retain female talent with children.

I am a life coach, helping ambitious working moms become their best selves every day. Part of this is educating companies on how to better support women in the workplace, especially those with children. Using valuable insights from my clients and my own experience as a working mom, I’ve put together five suggestions for companies on how to retain female talent, both pre and postpartum.

Find Out How You Can Support Women in the Workplace

Administering a survey is one of the best ways to determine your company’s ability to hire and retain working moms. Ask open-ended questions so you can find out more about the challenges female employees face and which are the most important. If possible, allow them to give their opinion anonymously to share their feelings without worrying about retribution.

Revamp Your Company Policies & Benefits

Once you’ve reviewed the survey, you’ll better understand the company policies and benefits that need revamping. For example, do the majority of female employees want paternity leave or extended maternity leave? Or perhaps they would prefer a more flexible work schedule? The company can also assess its employee performance evaluations, possibly changing from time-oriented to task-oriented.

Whether female talent want to feel more involved during meetings or expectant moms require a designated parking spot, companies should accommodate the needs of women in the workplace. Listening to your female employees, and implementing change, can make it easier to retain talented pre and postpartum female employees. In doing so, you’ll not only improve your business, but women in the workplace are more likely to feel heard and acknowledged.

Start a Mentorship Program

A study published by McKinsey, titled ‘Women in the Workplace 2020’, reveals that women may face significant roadblocks without the right mentorship and sponsorship opportunities. For example, a sponsor can amplify the voice of lower-level female talent, while a mentor can help guide women towards their career goals.

An official company mentor program is an excellent way for you to capitalize on your most fantastic resource, your employees. It also demonstrates the company’s commitment to nurturing talent and providing employees the opportunity to learn from a trusted advisor. Retaining female talent is far more likely for those companies who actively invest in their professional development. Women in these types of workplaces are also likely to be more loyal and productive. This further increases female employee retention rates.

Create an Employee Reward and Recognition Program

Every employee wants their manager to acknowledge their hard work. This recognition is especially true for pre and postpartum female employees who may quit their jobs due to feeling unappreciated, dismissed, or victim to gender inequality in the workplace. If possible, create a monthly reward and recognition program for outstanding employees. This straightforward strategy will foster a positive work culture and inspire employees to improve their work ethic. Working moms will also enjoy the positive reinforcement, especially those working from home who still want their efforts acknowledged outside the office.

Close the Wage Gap Between Your Employees

The pay gap between male and female talent is a long-standing issue of gender inequality in the workplace. It impacts female employees across all socioeconomic and racial groups in almost every industry. Companies should advocate for women in the workplace by closing the wage gap. After all, there’s a higher chance of female talent remaining loyal if they receive equal pay for equal work.

Make it Easier for Working Moms to Progress in Their Career

Are your pre and postpartum female workers anxious about potentially losing their job? Do the women in your workplace fear they’ll miss out on a promotion because of maternity leave? A top tip for supporting female workers is developing tools and creating opportunities that will allow them to advance their careers like their male counterparts. One way to do this is to focus on results, not on time spent; a great way to support a working mom’s need for flexibility. By creating opportunities for women, you can also tackle gender inequality in the workplace, encouraging female leadership and retaining your female employees in the process.

There’s no doubt in my mind that moms are some of the hardest workers on the planet. With the right strategies and support, you can create a supportive environment for pre and postpartum women. In doing so, your company can encourage women in the workplace to thrive at all stages of life.

Image by Paula Photo

Women in the Workplace: The Continuing Struggle [#WorkTrends]

March 12, 2021/DEI Diversity Equity Inclusion, Podcast Recaps /by Meghan M. Biro

Women in the workforce have always faced a lack of upward mobility, unequal pay, and suppression of our talent in the workplace. Now, let’s add the pull to leave the workforce to serve as a full-time caretaker. Or the need to balance work-from-home responsibilities with distance learning, elder care, and so much more.

How do women finally break down these barriers — old and new — and be seen as equal contributors in the workplace?

Our Guest: Kate Bischoff, Employment Attorney and HR Professional

On this week’s episode of #WorkTrends, Kate Bischoff joins us to discuss the continuing struggle of women in the workplace. An employment attorney and human resources professional who works closely with executive and HR teams to improve their workplaces, Kate is highly qualified to talk about the most significant hurdles women face at work today. And the number one obstacle, according to Kate?

“COVID. In the last nine months, we’ve seen so many women leave the workforce. We’re back to 1988 levels of women in the workplace. This pandemic has been a crisis upon a crisis upon a crisis. And we have lost women to such a dramatic degree.”

Yes, folks, the “Shecession” is real.

Women in the Workplace: Bringing Them Back

I asked Kate her views on bringing women back into the workforce, perhaps once pandemic-caused pressures are further behind us. “The first step,” Kate said after noting women have recently had to leave their jobs and careers to take care of family, “Is to eliminate things that hamper women when they’re looking for jobs. For example, eliminate the idea that a gap in your employment is a bad thing… like you must be a bad employee.”

Another necessary step, Kate says, is a pay audit, where a company uses existing data to determine any discrepancies in how they pay people and why. Using Salesforce as an example of a transparent company, Kate said that when employers take on this critical task, they are saying to not just women, but everyone:

“We want to make sure we are compensating you for the value you bring — and we’re also making sure everyone sees that we value you appropriately.”

During our conversation, Kate shared many other insights into this continuing struggle. So grab that next cup of coffee, set aside fifteen minutes, and listen in. You’ll be glad you did!

To learn more about Kate’s work, look for her on LinkedIn and at tHRive Law & Consulting.

The Promising Opportunities of Mentorship for Women

January 18, 2017/Archives /by Valerie Martinelli

Mentors can teach us many things. Among those things include how to develop and enhance our professional lives. Each female can benefit from a mentor to teach her how to expand her network, accept herself, and access career satisfaction and success. Mentors can play a fundamental role in what career is chosen and the ultimate direction that is chosen in life. Studies have proven that women with mentors have increased opportunities for success than those who do not. The guidance, direction, and advice of a mentor is effective and can be life-changing for those that may not have been afforded such valuable opportunities in the past.

Personal Benefits

Mentorship, whether it occurs in or out of the workplace, has numerous personal benefits because she will have someone with greater knowledge and experience to turn to. She can be guided through solving a problem or critiquing her work. Mentorship can help an employee feel less isolated at work as well as encourage her to interact more with others, particularly new hires. Mentors can provide tips on career growth and introduce the employee to other professionals. As the mentee matures within her career growth, a mentor may remain a valued adviser to the mentee.

Mentorship can help in defining career goals. To know where you’d like to go and to be successful; you need to know how to get there. Mentors have vast experience to help you to put a clear plan in action to get there. This vast experience also helps within navigating company policies and work politics. Mentors are valued individuals to turn to who will keep information private and confidential.

Employer Benefits

Employers directly benefit from their employees, including women, receiving mentorship. By offering a mentorship program as a component of your organization’s recruitment and onboarding process then you are sending the signal that the well-being and success of your employees is important and valued. By being invested in your employees’ personal and professional successes, you are conveying that you are willing to go the extra mile for them. An added benefit for employers is that a mentorship program allows new hires to integrate and engage within the organization more quickly, which makes the onboarding process more efficient and effective.

Mentoring empowers employees to reach their full personal and professional development as well as promotes their growth in a strategic and supportive manner, which leads to an increased return on investment per individual. Mentoring motivates and engages top-talent employees, which is important because it is your top talent that provides you with the means to build sustainable methods for talent. A targeted mentoring program that actively motivates and engages its most promising employees, which is an indispensable part of successful workforce planning and succession planning strategy is best.

Mentorship develops employee skills and qualities that remain valuable beyond the duration of the mentoring partnership. Employees in mentoring partnerships develop more competencies that they would like to acquire than those who are not. Mentorship develops leadership skills, teamwork, self-awareness, and the ability to compromise- all of which add value to your employees and your organization.

Formal mentorship programs can help with employee retention because top talent employees thrive at organizations in which they see themselves achieving their career goals and receiving the guidance that they need to grow as professionals and individuals. Mentoring is one of the best methods to confirm that your employees feel supported by your organization.

Mentoring partnerships help employees translate theory into practice as they apply their new knowledge immediately to assignments and projects. These partnerships facilitate direct opportunities for knowledge sharing, which enhances and taps into knowledge capital within an organization. It guarantees that your valuable organizational knowledge is not lost. An effective mentorship program brands your organization as the one who cares about its employees and helps your business continuously attract the best talent for the roles necessary.

How Does Mentorship Benefit Women?

Women oftentimes directly benefit the most from mentorship programs because it contributes most significantly to our employment retention. Oftentimes women indicate that the presence or absence of a supportive mentorship program is what ultimately drives their decision either to remain within their organization or to leave.

Mentorship can teach us to articulate our ambitions. An important factor to our success is that we do not permit our employers to believe that our performance speaks for itself. By doing so, then you are increasing the possibly to miss out on a promotion because you have not stated your ambition and desire for one. Without stating it, you may not be considered for one. Mentorship also breeds accountability through action because mentees learn to take responsibility for their action items and enjoy seeing them fulfilled.

It is also important for women to own their careers. By utilizing mentorship, sponsorship, and coaching we can learn to turn our weaknesses into strengths. Owning our careers is critical to our success. It is important for women to realize their ambitions, weaknesses, and strengths for mentorship to be most effective. Learn how to promote yourself well and understand the gaps within your skills and learn how to correct them. It is also important to expose yourself to different experiences in order not to get too comfortable and to continue to grow.

Mentoring partnerships can be life changing if they are done properly and lead to lifelong success.

A version of the post was first published on Careers in Government.

The Truth Is in the Data: The Top 5 Ways to Recruit More Women

June 3, 2016/Archives /by Kate Ward

As a professional in the talent space today, you’ve no doubt run across some facts and figures from the likes of McKinsey, Gallup, Deloitte…the list goes on…showing that companies with more female employees, particularly in management roles, yield stronger organizational and financial performance.

As a result, the focus on recruiting female employees continues to grow, and companies are pulling out all the stops. Fertility benefits, shipping breast milk home from work trips, in-office massages and manicures, on-site OB/GYNs, and feminine products in the restrooms are just a few of the ways companies are getting creative with trying to appeal to women.

While these things may be appreciated by female employees, they’re not what’s driving their decision to come on board with your company—or to stick around. We must realize that recruiting female talent is about more than just flashy perks.

At InHerSight, a new platform in the online recruiting space, we’re striving to propel this perspective. Through our site, we enable women to rate their current employers on 15 fixed metrics such as management opportunities, maternity leave, and salary satisfaction, and we use this data to match women with new job opportunities based on what they’re looking for in an employer. And from the company’s point-of-view, we help organizations be more successful at recruiting female talent and building more female-friendly workplaces using our data and insights.

Recently, we analyzed responses from 15,000 women looking for great workplaces on our site, across a broad range of ages, industries, and geographies. Women were able to select multiple options from our metrics. The results may surprise you—what women said they wanted most from their employers was not ample maternity leave or mentorship programs or other fancy incentives.

So, before you update your career website, write your next job description, craft your latest job offer, or even decide how you’re going to allocate funds to certain benefits and perks, read on to learn what women really value most from their employers and then use this information to appeal to them to come work at your company. Here are the top five items, in order of importance:

1. Paid time off (90% of respondents)

Our top answer, paid time off, demonstrates that women want the ability to manage their own work-life balance. This comment from an employee at non-profit DonorsChoose highlights the positive impact of being able to take time off when you need it: “As a junior leader…I feel extremely supported and empowered to take risks, take time for myself, and prioritize my workload to meet business needs without burning myself out. We work extremely hard, but we also get lots of vacation time and flex(ible) work opportunities.” If your company isn’t providing a reasonable amount of paid time off, it may be time to rethink the value that this could bring your workforce.

2. Salary satisfaction (89% of respondents)

This is an obvious one—women want to be paid fairly for the work they do. While there is certainly more strides to be made regarding equal pay in this country and elsewhere, women at the very least want to be compensated competitively for the amount of effort they put in, the experience they bring, and the scope of their responsibilities.

Our research revealed that computer technology company Dell appears to be getting this right as one employee commented: “…it seems that salaries are based on hard work, perform(ance), and seniority, not gender.” And an employee from tech giant Amazon commented, “(There are) long hours and high expectations but (it’s) manageable with the right boss, and salary is commensurate with effort, in my opinion, which makes it worthwhile.” Beyond making sure your salaries are competitive in the market in general, companies should conduct an annual salary review to ensure that men and women who have the same level of responsibility and experience are paid in parallel. And wherever discrepancies are found, you should work with your CFO or Financial Planner to make the necessary adjustments.

3. Outstanding co-workers (89% of respondents)

Our research shows that women seek co-workers who are respectful, professional, unbiased, and generally easy to work with. This comment from an employee at enterprise software company Asana highlights the positive benefits that women feel when they get to work with great people: “I feel encouraged to speak my mind, supported to soundboard my thoughts, and in very good company.” Clearly, interactions with colleagues and the social environments cultivated by companies have a huge impact on how women feel about their employers, with women citing specifically that strong male-dominated “old boys” and “bro” cultures were off-putting, and that instead, they sought a culture that took gender out of the equation. By implementing a structured interview process in your company, you can be sure to hire for the qualities, personalities, and culture fit that fuel an environment that women are attracted to—and thrive in.

4. Equal opportunities for men and women (85% of respondents)

There’s no hidden message here; it’s exactly how it sounds—if men have access to an opportunity, a women should as well. Opportunities should be based solely on merit. So, follow suit and provide equal access to promotions, leadership roles, salary increases, and incentive programs. One employee at mobile games platform Chartboost describes it well: “(This is) the first time in my career that I’ve felt my gender truly had no bearing on how I’m treated as an employee. I see men and women equally represented in management positions and being given equal opportunities to move up within the company.”

5. Flexible work hours (81% of respondents)

Women strongly seek employers who are flexible with working hours, allowing them to set their own schedules and successfully attend to both the demands of life and work. An employee at best practice insights company CEB stated: “As an employee who has both a senior job and a lot of outside commitments, my manager and I work together to create the right schedule for me—and communicate (it) to others within CEB—in order to fulfill my personal AND professional ambitions.” Employers seeking more female talent should thus become amenable to the idea that it’s about your employees’ ability to do their jobs and do them well—and not as much about when and where they do it.

What women want

As a whole, our data indicate that women are not looking for employers to answer their specific needs, whether for family-raising, socializing, or creating work-life balance. Nor do companies need to offer a bunch of fancy perks and incentives. Rather, women seek employers that treat them fairly and provide them with the choice, the flexibility, and the financial means to fashion their own lives as they see fit.

A version of this post was first published on Greenhouse.io.

Surprise: Big Perks Don’t Always Equal Happier Female Employees

December 31, 2015/Archives /by Kimberly Rae Gilbert

The conversation about women in the workplace is getting personal. And maybe that’s a good thing.

This past summer, an ex-employee called out Amazon for its inhospitable policies toward women and parents. In September, a female employee sued Microsoft for gender discrimination. It wasn’t the only high-profile company to come under fire: both Twitter and Facebook are defendants in similar suits filed this year.

At the same time, several companies (mainly in the technology sector) have upped their game in the race to acquire top—and specifically, female—talent, engaging in fierce competition. Consequently, there has been an increase in female-focused perks: Apple and Facebook are helping women freeze their eggs, while IBM and Twitter now express-ship breastmilk home to babies while their parents are away on business. There has been a slew of revamped policies on parental leave: with Vodaphone, Johnson & Johnson, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Change.org, Netflix, Microsoft, Adobe, and the U.S. Navy all enacting more progressive codes.

So, what’s fueling this fire?

When we look at all these revolutionary changes, we may conclude that companies are simply acting in their own best interest, now that the business case for diversity has been made. Last year, Scientific American reported on a study finding that, on average, “female representation in top management leads to an increase of $42 million in firm value.” That’s a hard number to ignore! Or it might be that women (at least, those in a position to do so) are heeding the warnings of others when choosing where to work, selecting companies that support their particular needs, and building a new direction for office culture. Companies may be reacting to a real and growing dissatisfaction among their female employees.

No matter what the reason, this momentum toward significant change is certainly a welcome one. But the motivation behind the policy revisions may actually matter—a lot—as to whether they represent the actual change that is needed.

It forces us to ask, where’s the disconnect between what working women want, and what companies have on offer?

Perks are half the story

A Business Insider article recently pointed out that various perks—such as the $2,000 stipend to buy maternity clothes offered by Domo—may not actually help women and parents. Instead, it functions as “a consolation prize” for the genuine need. (In Domo’s case, as in many cases, that genuine need is guaranteed paid parental leave for U.S. workers.)

Even more important is the potential difference between a company’s policies—e.g., 12 weeks of paid maternity leave—and company realities—e.g., very few employees willing to take that full leave, as corporate culture pressures them to return early. Without including both, you don’t get a full picture of a workplace environment.

That’s precisely what motivated Ursula Mead to found InHerSight, a platform for every woman to rate employers’ female-friendly (or not) policies on both the “hard” facts and the “soft” realities. The site solicits feedback via a three-minute, anonymous survey. In other words, you don’t have to be a top executive at a household-name company to speak up about workplace gender discrimination, poor parental support, inflexible work schedules, or the nature of opportunities available for growth and leadership. Conversely, it highlights which companies are outstanding in these areas, as judged by their own employees.

By providing this invaluable feedback, women (and men, too) are creating a rich database that helps fellow site users make informed job choices that support their unique career and lifestyle needs.

Company policies tell only half the story. The other half comes from the people who know the companies best—the women who work there and are affected by those policies, Mead emphasizes.

“In the quest for greater equality for women in the workplace, the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of policy implementation are often more important than the policy itself. Numbers that look great on paper aren’t always great in reality, and benefits that may appear middle-of-the-road could be fantastic,” she explains.

She offers the example of Cisco, which offers six weeks of paid maternity leave to employees. That’s far fewer than many of their tech-sector peers, yet it has a satisfaction score of 3.5 out of 5 for the “Maternity and Adoptive Leave” metric on InHerSight. IBM, on the other hand, offers 14 weeks paid and receives a score of just 3.3 from the women who work there. Amazon, which falls somewhere in between at eight paid weeks, has a score of just 2.3*. Factors for the discrepancy may include how welcome parents feel towards taking the full time, or how difficult it is to settle back into the workplace after taking leave.

Data also shows you can’t judge a company by its leader. Organizations run by women aren’t necessarily doing a better job of encouraging female leadership. Yahoo provides a prime example. Despite Marissa Mayer’s role as CEO, Female Representation in Top Leadership is one of the company’s lowest-rated metrics on InHerSight.

User comments on the site reflect this potential disconnect. One Yahoo reviewer states, “Although we have a woman CEO, I have seen a lot of women executives leave as they weren’t promoted and didn’t get the support they needed.” This may connect to the fact that its other low-ranking stat is Telecommuting and Sponsorship/Mentorship.

Positive change for one and all

While the wealth of collective information coming from sources like InHerSight can benefit women seeking a positive place to move forward in their careers, the best news is there’s evidence that employers are paying attention as well.

Mead says, since she launched InHerSight in January 2015, she has received a steady flow of inquiries and interest from companies wanting to understand their metrics, as well as the types of benefits they can offer to recruit and support female employees. “We love to see companies trying to create solutions that really do benefit the women who work for them,” she adds.

Perhaps “solutions” is the right word. After all, as long as we’re still just offering “perks”—that is, looking at women’s workplace satisfaction as a set of fringe benefits—we won’t have made the kind of mainstream, center-field change we need to create better gender balance. Having more solid data of the same nature that InHerSight collects is paramount to providing solutions that don’t just look good on paper, but in reality.

*Amazon announced on November 2, 2015 its plan to increase paid parental leave for its employees.

A version of this post was originally published on The Toolbox.

photo credit: Catfeet via photopin (license)

Why So Many "Groundbreaking" Company Policies Fall Short for Women

December 23, 2015/Archives /by Ursula Mead

Unlimited paid parental leave. Sounds amazing, right? When Netflix announced that it was offering “unlimited” (up to 12 months) paid leave to new moms and dads, its chief talent officer touted the new policy: “Each employee gets to figure out what’s best for their family.”

It’s a bold and admirable step for a US company, creating a new golden standard for other companies to strive for and setting Netflix up as a leader in promoting equality and support for working parents.

But policies are only one part of the story.

In the quest for greater equality for women in the workplace, the how’s and why’s of a policy’s implementation are often even more important than the policies themselves. Things that look great on paper (and sound even better in a press release) won’t always be great in reality, while policies that may look middle-of-the-road could be fantastic depending on the culture that surrounds them.

Take it or leave it?

Is it any surprise that when women take maternity leave, they often come back to jobs that have changed, moved, or disappeared altogether? You portion off your duties to colleagues, sometimes hoping that things don’t go well without you because you want to be needed.

There’s more to the story than simply how many weeks of paid leave are written in the employee handbook. And in cases like Netflix, where there’s ambiguity around how many weeks you take, we may find that this golden standard actually causes more problems for women than it solves. You’re the one making the call on how much leave you take or whether you come back part-time at first, and that can be seen as a reflection of how dedicated you are to your employer.

As a result, even more important than policies themselves is the potential difference between a company’s policies and company realities — e.g., very few employees willing to take that full leave, as corporate culture pressures them to return early. Without understanding both, you don’t get a full picture of a workplace environment.

Take Cisco, which offers six weeks of paid maternity leave to employees. That’s far fewer than many of their tech-sector peers, yet it has a satisfaction score of 3.5 out of 5 for the “Maternity and Adoptive Leave” metric on InHerSight. IBM, on the other hand, offers 14 weeks paid and trails Cisco with a score of 3.3 from the women who work there. Factors for the discrepancy may include how welcome parents feel towards taking the full time, or how difficult it is to settle back into the workplace after taking leave.

We can’t keep having policies fall short, nor can we let company policies alone be our measure for progress. The best way to help change that is to show companies what they need to do better as well as what they’re doing right.

A version of this post was first published on InHerSight on November 23, 2015

photo credit: Woman and young girl in kitchen with laptop and paperwork smiling via photopin (license)

On Finding the Leader’s Way

March 28, 2014/6 Comments/Archives /by Kevin W. Grossman

“You got up, and you did something. And if trying to find a way when you don’t even know you can get there isn’t a small miracle; then I don’t know what is.”

—From The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

At first, it was simply the gathering of everyday natural things that pleased her: leaves, flowers, sticks and rocks.

These pleasing things, found in her front yard and back, as well as other parks around town, down by the sea, up in the mountains, and other realms of her ever-expanding world, were gathered with awe and handled with care. They were then stored in small plastic buckets outside on the front porch, on the back porch, in and around the house, and inside the cup holders of her car seats.

She studied them endlessly, held up high and down low, then up close and far away, smelled and rubbed, sometimes even licked and tasted. All the while, reverent questions arose of origin and type, of utility and relationships, her mind revolving around magnificent worlds within worlds, a gravity grounded yet flinging her into orbit to watch the universe birth anew, over and over and over again.

Patterns emerged on paper and across the kitchen table, the living room floor, the sofa, her bedroom floor and elsewhere. Some are more abstract than others, mazes and puzzles that only she knows the solutions to, ready to share with her parents, her sister, her teachers and classmates.

Regardless of what career may come for my eldest daughter, she’ll hopefully be college educated and working for a company where her colleagues share knowledge, collaborate with one another and spark innovative ideas, products and solutions. A company that invests in her continuous development, strengthening her skills and competencies.

Maybe she will be a scientist, or an engineer, or a captain of industry, looking for patterns and puzzles to solve in “pleasing things” and more, for those fleeting moments making the world a better place, searching for the magical visions within that will help transcend the unlikely.

And if the statistics hold steady, the pool of qualified women leaders is growing. That according to Sydney Finkelstein, the Steven Roth Professor of Management at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. That’s good news for both my daughters.

But whether you’re a woman or a man, the ability to “finding the leader’s way” in the world of work (and life) against all odds, or less dramatically, one little learning step at a time, is no easy task. Authentic leadership comes from continuous learning that embraces trust without judgment and the belief in everyday small miracles.

Unfortunately the world of work today continues to struggle for leadership. According to Bersin by Deloitte:

Leadership will be a big challenge in 2014. Executives are struggling with leadership gaps at all levels—from first-line supervision through top leadership (more than 60 percent of all companies cite “leadership gaps” as their top business challenge). This year, baby boomers will begin to retire in large volumes; one oil company told me that they expect to lose 30 percent of their workforce in the next three years.

So what to do? Finding the leader’s way today includes these two things:

Encourage Learning. We are all lifelong learners and potential leaders, and from the earliest memories of awe and exploration to everyday “finding our ways” in the world of work (and again life), learning and leadership development should be part of every company’s talent strategy. This ensures that employees are given the learning opportunities they need to develop their leadership skills, and that the organization itself will have the leaders it needs for the future.
Encourage Authenticity. Authentic leadership is all about developing yourself first in a manner that helps others see the complete you, exclusive of any organization’s help. This includes all your strengths, imperfections and accomplishments. We all crave authenticity and you have to be real in order to be heard. The most effective leaders today create dialogue and skillfully use indicators of their humanity. Great leadership is all about partnering and relationships, and the key to building productive teams is to be a little more unfiltered, personal and authentic.

Learning and being authentic are what it’s all about. This includes being willing to spread out our everyday “pleasing things,” looking for patterns and puzzles to solve, for those fleeting moments making the world a better place, searching for the magical visions within that will help transcend the unlikely while finding the leader’s way.

We can get there, girls. You are the small miracles.

Photo courtesy of Kevin W. Grossman.

Gender Pay Gap: The Numbers Still Don't Add Up

October 30, 2013/Archives /by

The world of work has become fairly sophisticated, with laws and business norms that support equitable career opportunities for all. However, there’s still plenty of room for progress — especially in terms of pay.

Studies show that compensation for women still lags behind men in the same role. Furthermore, men still outnumber women in professions that are typically lucrative, such as science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

The infographic below, compiled by MedReps.com (an online resource for desirable medical and pharmaceutical sales jobs), reveals various aspects of the gender pay gap — with a selection of insights by location, industry, occupation and title. Here are several noteworthy takeaways:

• The United States ranks 22nd in the world, overall, in gender pay disparity;
• On average, female doctors earn $56,000 a year less than males;
• The female-to-male earnings ratio in the construction industry is 92%, while in the financial industry lags behind at only 72%.

Check out the full infographic below and share your thoughts with us in the comments area.

What do you think? What are some reasons why there’s still a gender pay gap? And what can we do to improve these statistics?

(Image Credit: Ken Teegardin at Flickr.com)

Gender Pay Gap: The Numbers Still Don’t Add Up

October 30, 2013/Archives /by Heather Huhman