Accelerating gender parity – why and how

By Uschi Schreiber, EY Global Vice Chair – Markets and Chair of Global Accounts Committee and Stephen R. Howe, Jr., EY U.S. Chairman and Americas Managing Partner

For a long time now, the evidence couldn’t be clearer: accelerating gender parity in the workplace is an imperative to business success worldwide. Countless studies have shown this and a recent McKinsey Global Institute report estimates that global GDP would grow by 26% -- US$28 trillion or roughly the size of the U.S. and Chinese economies combined – if women and men were treated equally in global labor markets. We also know that Fortune 500 companies with the most women in their C-Suites outperformed the average by 17% on return on sales, 45% on return on invested capital and 25% on return on equity, according to research from the independent non-profit Catalyst.

The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) “Global Gender Gap Index” annually underscores the strong correlation between a country’s gender gap and its national competitiveness. The reason is simple: because women account for one-half of a country’s potential talent base, a nation’s competitiveness in the long term depends on whether and how it educates girls and integrates its women into its workforce.

And yet, when the WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report 2015 came out this week, it showed the gender gap had in fact increased in many countries.  Last year the prediction was that it would take 81 years to achieve parity in economic participation. In 2015 this estimate has reached 118 years globally!  Despite all the evidence that parity improves performance, this disparity tells the story of a tremendous source of talent remaining significantly under-utilized.

At EY’s recent Strategic Growth Forum US 2015 in Palm Springs, CA, we put the achievement of gender parity in the workplace front and center, calling upon the 2,000 business leaders and investors gathered there to step up their leadership and accelerate the advancement of women. Our keynote panel – “Women. Fast forward: gender parity and business value” – connected gender parity with growth and provided real-life examples of how to best accomplish it.  And our panelists were determinedly optimistic.

One of them, Larraine Segil, the second woman board director of Frontier Communications, sees society reaching a tipping point on gender parity and diversity. Backing up her point, we at EY are finding that gender parity has become a top-five issue for the bulk of CEOs we meet.

Charlotte Guyman, a Berkshire Hathaway board director, pointed out, “U.S. business [has been] so incredibly successful, If we did that with only half of the talent pool available, what would we be able to do when we tap into 100% of the talent pool?”

At EY, we have identified three accelerators that – if pursued consistently and over time – can make a huge difference for the retention and advancement of women in business.

First, there is illuminating the path to leadership by providing women clear and solid opportunities for advancement.  This is about holding people in leadership roles accountable for mentoring and sponsoring women, including measuring progress, so we can grow the number of women in leadership positions and the pipeline that leads into these roles.

Ms. Segil and Ms. Guyman, as board members for their respective organizations, , attested to the importance of the right tone from the top and stressed the need to bring urgency to gender parity.  Ms. Segil was blunt about the stakes, telling the audience, “If we didn’t have a diverse thought process, we probably would be out of business.” Today, Frontier’s board is 42% female.

For Ms. Guyman, the promise of gender parity is exhilarating and full of potential. “One of the fantastic opportunities we have with gender parity is unleashing the archetypical male and female qualities in both men and women.”

Our second accelerator is speeding up company culture change with progressive corporate policy.

That includes making the workplace more welcoming to career women by adopting the most progressive approaches to flexible working, maternity and paternity leave, and travel. It’s especially vital because millennials are taking the workforce in a new direction.

Millennials are one and a half times as likely as boomers to have dual-career households. As we documented in our recent study, Global Generations 2.0, millennial men find flexibility more important than millennial women, and they are willing to leave their jobs over it. And similarly, our Generations 1.0 study found millennial women are even more ambitious than millennial men. 

This means that companies need to strengthen “work-life integration” for their employees – with policies and programs that encourage telecommuting, and compressed work weeks, along with a willingness to adapt daily schedules to give people what they need to succeed in both their careers and personal lives. In short, flexibility is the key because it makes the workplace more stable, maximizes the performance of both women and men and helps retain them.

Building supportive environments is our third accelerator.

All of our panelists agreed it can be difficult to create lasting change in company cultures, but they emphasized a number of practical suggestions to help smooth the way.

James Segil, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder and former president of EdgeCast Networks, urged executives to promote a gender-inclusive environment by getting rid of the “locker room mentality.” “Do things to make it a lot more open to all different kinds of folks,” Mr. Segil said. He cited an unexpected benefit to moving away from “a guys’ culture.” It has helped EdgeCast attract and retain talented millennials of both genders who are searching for more inclusive environments to work.

The panel’s other recommendations included more active and broad-based sponsorship for high-potential women, making team-building events more inclusive and family friendly and carefully examining one’s culture for unconscious bias while working to ameliorate it.

The proof from our panelists was absolute: making progress towards gender parity is a significant indicator of a company’s success. Building opportunities for women leaders creates healthier cultures and improves performance and better bottom lines.

Certainly, every organization will face challenges when shaping their cultures and creating work environments appealing to all workers – but the value of so doing is undisputed. We all need to become visible champions of gender parity sot everyone has the opportunity to realize their fullest potential.

When the workplace is more open and equal, all fortunes rise.

The views reflected in this article are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organization or its member firms.