Women in the Workplace
by Neha Ajmera
McKinsey and Company is a leading global management consulting firm with 88 years of experience and 107 offices spanning 61 countries. McKinsey plays a unique role in addressing some of the world's most critica l social problems and has published frequently on the topic of Women in the Economy. Neha is an engagement manager in McKinsey's Silicon Valley office where she focused most of her time with technology and telecom clients. Outside of work she enjoys traveling, rock climbing and running.
Much has been written recently about the gender gap in the workplace - both in numbers, particularly at the senior most levels and in wages. The good news is that our research shows that companies that take on the challenge of addressing this gap can drive real improvements over time.
We believe there are five areas of focus:
- The Talent Pipeline: While women comprise at least 50% of the entry level workforce, their representation at the executive leadership levels is typically 25% or less and the drop-off happens across the pipeline. But, there is good news: we have found that companies that focused on supporting and sponsoring women across the pipeline were able to make significant improvements in the C-Suite achieving up to 30% female representation.
- Skill Building: In 2012 we interviewed 250 high-ranking women executives, they rated grit and resilience as the two top attributes leading to their own success. These were higher than things like “results orientation”. The obvious question is - how can companies help women with resilience and grit? Creating stretch opportunities for women along with strengths based feedback and positive reinforcement is one way. Success in challenging situations builds self-confidence and failures, if tolerated, build resilience.
- Sponsorship: Sponsorship has to do with fighting to get somebody a promotion, mentioning their name in meetings, and making sure that the person that you are sponsoring gets the next assignment - both visible and developmental assignments. Mentorship may or may not include these aspects, but typically involves showing someone the ropes and giving benevolent advice. HBR recently published an article on how women tend to be over-mentored and under-sponsored. They receive lots of good advice, but tend to have fewer influential leaders standing up for them and creating opportunities for them to succeed. Nearly 60% of women leaders have said they wish they had more sponsors. However, too often the onus of finding a sponsor falls squarely back on women’s shoulders. The result is the existing status quo and often an old boys’ club. But, conscious change is possible- companies like eBay are challenging this by requiring that VPs and SVPs sponsor 5 high talent women. Such efforts have helped the company more than double the number of women in leadership roles since 2010.
- Rooting out unconscious biases: Several diversity officers report that despite best efforts, women even today tend to be promoted based on performance, while men are promoted based on potential. Further, early research on use of language indicates that female leaders are far more likely (30% more likely) to be described with negative descriptors like “bossy, aggressive, abrasive” by both men and women. But, again deliberate efforts do pay off. Last year Google initiated diversity-training workshops based on academic research into unconscious biases. They documented instances of when just calling out the risk of an unconscious bias impacted awareness and resulted in female promotion.
- And finally, focusing on policies and ensuring that they work. Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet policy and just having a policy is not enough. Companies must ensure that there is balanced and active participation in policies across both genders.
No two companies will start this journey from the same starting point. Each company's combination of industry, heritage, location, regulation and aspiration is unique. That said, there are a handful of practical steps that companies can take to accelerate progress. A great starting point would be to ascertain where you stand, and what good looks like. This will help you find the problem: Is it your industry, your recruitment or focus on advancement and retention? From there you can systematically take the steps needed to start moving the needle.
While there are many things women should be doing to support their own success, it should be noted here that organizations too frequently put the onus back on women and we have found that this rarely works. Com panies must begin to ask or require men in leadership roles to step up - to prioritize their own time to change the dynamics, actively sponsor women, take on the biases in the system and become champions to build superior female talent.
That said, our research has highlighted a few trends that women at entry and mid-levels should be actively trying to reverse in order to accelerate their growth:
First, women do not seek out sponsors enough, and when they do, they do it too late. Early and mid-level women should be building sponsorship relationships. It is never too early and every woman needs men and women who will sponsor and agitate for their continued progression by creating opportunities, promoting and championing them.
Next, women do not ask for advice and feedback the way men do. Proactively seek feedback, including feedback from men. Unbiased, candid feedback can be incredibly useful in finding and addressing blind-spots early on.
And finally, women question their ability far too much. Have confidence in yourself and be willing to take more risks. Let senior leaders know your goals and aspirations.
Winning the war for female talent is a matter of strategic imperative - companies that focus on it will build superior talent pipelines, of both men and women over time, and those that don't will fall behind. No ac tion is in itself a strategic choice. In our experience companies that invest to build awareness about where they're starting from, even if behind, begin to put in motion the elements that enable them to improve. Like many strategic issues, this is not one that if left alone improves on its own.