Yahoo Finance Video
Why women still have a long way to go for workplace equality
A new report on women in the workplace shows women have made progress in corporate America over the last ten years. Today, women make up 29% of C-suite positions, compared to just 17% in 2015, according to a report by McKinsey and LeanIn.org. Lean In co-founder and CEO Rachel Thomas and McKinsey Senior Partner Alexis Krivkovich join Wealth! to discuss the report and why there’s still a long way to go for women to see equal representation in the C-suite. “We’re at 29% women in the C-suite. That’s a huge gain from 10 years ago, which was 17%. But those gains are incredibly fragile. And here’s why. When you look under the hood, the way companies, on average, got that representation into the C-suite was they added a seat at the table and they tried hard to fill that with a woman. That seat was typically a staff position, so we’re talking CHRO, chief legal counsel, a finance leader. Those are really important, but you can’t keep adding seats to the table to get yourself to equality,” Krivkovich tells Yahoo Finance. She also notes that these companies have mainly looked externally for that talent, explaining, “they’re not growing the next generation inside the way we need to see.” Thus, a lot of work still needs to be done for women to rise up in the C-suite. She explains that in the best-case scenario, full equality can be achieved in 22 years for white women and 48 years for women of color. Thomas adds that despite increasing commitments to gender and racial diversity, progress slipped over the last year. “One of the first things we need is organizations to recommit to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and really double down on their efforts,” she says. She hopes to see these organizations focus on the “broken rung,” which is a term that describes the disadvantaged position women are in from their first step up to manager. Thomas notes that for every 100 men that were promoted to manager this year, only 81 women followed suit. Therefore, organizations need to invest in the early careers of women. Krivkovich concludes, “This is not about a zero-sum game. This is about creating opportunity for all. And we see that in companies that do it really well. When they have really strong processes in place, when they de-bias the system, they don’t just add better maternity leave policies, they add better paid paternity leave policies. They don’t just teach managers how to coach and develop women, they teach managers how to coach and develop all employees. And that’s why you see the results for the companies that really focus on this actually have healthier performance across the board.” For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Wealth! This post was written by Melanie Riehl