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

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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.

Women as Business Leaders: Advice from the Top

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How can women, as business leaders, help ourselves get ahead? You might wonder how studying exemplary business women translates to applicable lessons for executives in the field. Well, there are some female business leaders inspiring change—and they’re working in a wide variety of industries and roles. We can follow their lead and keep up the momentum they’ve started to continue to make progress in areas that need attention, for women in the business world. There are also some behaviors and habits we can cultivate, according to female leaders who have already done the hard work of climbing to the top.

Exemplary Women in the Business World

There are many prominent leaders in the business world whom we can look up to, as examples. Shonda Rhimes is a writer at ABC for shows like Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, where she writes about controversial subjects and casts a good number of women in dynamic roles. Kara Swisher and Debbie Sterling are two women related to the tech industry who are making an effort to change the status quo. Swisher is an investigative journalist who has pointed out glaring gender and race gaps in Silicon Valley; and Sterling is encouraging young girls interested in STEM by creating engineering-related toys for girls via GoldieBlox, helping to narrow the gender gap in the engineering field. Lastly, Marissa Mayer, President, and CEO of Yahoo, is well known for increasing the length of maternity leave and fighting for more transparency in the NSA’s data collection policies.

Another woman making great strides in the business world is Lisa Petrilli, founder of C-Level Strategies. According to Petrilli, executive leaders should create and maintain a vision—and, moreover, they should have a passion for that vision! She emphasizes the importance of communicating and explaining your idea clearly, so people understand it. Also, don’t feel the need to go it alone: make an effort to hire and promote those who share your vision and understand their role in realizing that vision. Because of the specificity of your goals, it’s also important to implement some way to evaluate your employees’ work. That way, you have a system for measuring your progress, and you’ll be able to develop ways to help your staff to improve, if necessary.

Traits & Habits of Successful Business Leaders

In a recent Forbes article, Lisa Song Sutton discusses a few ways women can become fearless leaders, starting with getting rid of any fear you might have about being “the only female in the room.” In the business world, being the sole woman in a roomful of men will probably be a frequent occurrence. However, you should realize that the only thing you can control is how you choose to react to negativity; it’s possible for a positive attitude and strong performance to assuage and largely eliminate your colleagues’ doubts.

Surprisingly enough, more often than you might expect, some of the most critical members may include other women. There has been substantial research examining why women compete with each other—including a literature review by Tracy Vaillancourt in 2013 that found women express mostly indirect aggression toward other women in the form of both self-promotion and derogation of rivals. Rather than choosing to compete with your female colleagues, however, it would more greatly benefit all parties involved if, instead of participating in cutting other women down, you chose to mentor each other. Sutton argues that mentoring other women “supports a social revolution and the realization that we aren’t in competition with each other, but more so with ourselves.”

In Competition With Ourselves

Speaking of being in competition with ourselves, sometimes we truly are our own worst enemies. Pat Olsen wrote a piece in Diversity Woman recently about ways women can be more assertive and overcome the tendency to apologize, and the first tip she gave was to believe in your self-worth. Quickly following on the heels of her call for doing “self-work,” however, was the reminder that it’s more important to be respected than to be liked. In other words, you should focus more on liking yourself than in trying to get others to like you.

If you’re concerned about others’ opinions of you, you may hold yourself back from speaking your mind during meetings or introducing an innovative idea during a presentation. The importance of speaking of your mind assertively and genuinely, without fear, can’t be stressed strongly enough. It’s an extension, of sorts, of the adage, “Fake it till you make it.”

If you come across as impressive and carry yourself with confidence, you will earn your colleagues’ respect. If you come across as impressive and carry yourself with confidence, you will earn your colleagues’ respect.

However, beyond a positive attitude, it’s crucial to network with influential colleagues and senior-level leaders who have influence in your company. If that necessarily denotes male counterparts at the management level, so be it. “Don’t be afraid to be a pioneer,” says Kerry Doyle, CEO of the Heart Foundation. Of course, it can be scary to find oneself in the front of the line without any other women with whom you can relate, as a peer; however, the potential gains and opportunities usually outweigh the risk. And if you consistently find yourself along at the top of the ladder, make an effort to pull other women onto the ladder with you. Studies have shown that a ‘pipeline’ of female managers, rather than merely a female CEO, is necessary in order to help more middle management-level women attain executive positions in the business world.

To get to a more utopian, gender-balanced version of the corporate world, in the U.S. don’t be afraid to dream big. Studies show, in fact, that there’s reason to be optimistic about the future of business models when it comes to a more philanthropic, socially-conscious corporate world: Jean Tang reports in a recent Forbes article that “compared with men, women are doubly likely to create social impact ventures.” Therefore, women should embrace their tendency to want to “do good” and use the instinct to their advantage, when searching for entrepreneurial inspiration.

Encouragingly, Tang reminds us, the Dalai Lama said, “The world will be saved by Western women.” This bodes well for the future of corporate America, which is sure to be populated by more women than in the past. Furthermore, business leaders, more than ever, are striving toward socially conscious causes that exist to benefit humankind, rather than simply to make profits. As women, we should be optimistic about this trend, and be bold in our visions as leaders. We have plenty of good company when it comes to other women who can serve as role models and examples to us of what we can do when we put our minds to it. Let us go forth, then.

Image credit: StockSnap.io

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

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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

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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)