My recent work is interesting. For some, it’s less of a priority than it was pre-pandemic. For many, it’s a battle between the types who go back to work and those who prefer to stay away, or at least have a choice. This is a place where you need to offer more than a salary and basic benefits.
So companies looking to keep their employees successful and satisfied are finding new ways to help them, especially when diversity, equity and inclusion are concerns.
And some people do better than others.
Parity.org’s recently released 2022 list of “Best Companies for Women to Advance” had only 43 companies on the list, with only Ralph Lauren Corp. among them in the fashion sector.
So-called ParityLIST, a nonprofit initiative focused on bridging gender and racial gaps in corporate leadership, launched in 2020. It recognizes organizations that provide policies and benefits that promote opportunities for women in the workplace rather than presenting barriers. It has been so for a long time.
Ralph Lauren Chief People Officer and Head of Ralph Lauren Corporate, Roseann Lynch, said: The foundation said in a statement.
In 2020, Ralph Lauren announced that it had already achieved its goal of gender equality at the vice president level and above by 2023, confirming that women now make up 50% of these positions at the company. .
More broadly, according to Parity, women make up 48% of the total workforce, yet 67% of the average executive is white and male.
According to Parity, 88% of companies on the 2022 list regularly measure and report gender equality metrics, 86% report gender equality values to their employees, and 98% offer flexible working. We provide time and 95% encourage men to take full parental leave.
However, only 31% of companies have at least 50% women on their leadership team, up from 21% of companies on ParityLIST last year. Efforts seemingly going in the right direction, with 91% of companies requiring recruiters to include at least one female candidate who is eligible for an open executive position.
Airbnb, Best Buy, Nasdaq, The Clorox Company, and more made the list of the best companies for women to advance.
Merit was a big part of the ranking.
Cathrin Stickney, Founder and CEO of Parity.org, told WWD: “A company mandates parental leave for all who give birth or adopt, and most employees are paid full salary during that time. “This means that men who take leave and fathers do not get any salary or promotion advantages over women whose male counterparts take only a few days off.”
And she added: All employees are expected to work specific hours (based on their time zone), but can complete the remaining hours at their convenience. This gives women, in particular, the flexibility to see a doctor, send their children to school, and participate in other caregiving responsibilities. ”
While progress has been made in how the modern workforce works for women, equality has been reached, especially as men are still employed and promoted to the top jobs at much higher rates than women. We still have a long way to go.
“It’s really frustrating that the pay-parity needle isn’t moving as fast as it should. , and it continues,” Stickney said, citing Pew Research. Since Parity.org was launched in her 2017, the amount a woman earns for every dollar a man makes has increased by just 0.5% each year, and today stands at 84 cents for every dollar a man makes. It is, she added.
And none of this is helped by the pandemic’s impact on women in the workforce.
The National Center for Women’s Law stated in a report in March this year: Women, especially black women, Latinos and other women of color, still struggle to make a living. ”
So what should companies that are on the long road to gender equality do now and next?
Stickney says it’s two things (the same two things many companies have been forced to do when it comes to racial representation): Make public commitments. and measuring its progress.
“More companies need to publicly commit to interviewing qualified women for all open leadership positions,” she said. We’ve made promises, but with little or no results, public promises are different.This will not only help employees understand that the company values diversity and equity, but it will also help the company Leaders and managers can hold organizations accountable for actively working towards equality.”
From there, it’s about authorization and accountability.
“You can’t fix what you can’t see,” says Stickney. “Companies need to measure not only employee representation and pay equity, but the entire employee lifecycle from recruitment to turnover in order to fully understand where the obstacles and opportunities lie. Once you start measuring, you discover all sorts of patterns that were previously unseen: Do women, for example, quit more than men five years into the company?
“Or, if you hire more women than men at the entry level and more men than women at the management level, ask high potential employees to fill senior positions and find only men. If you can’t, you’ll have pipeline problems,” she added. “Unless you measure and report the right things, you won’t even know you have these problems.”
