Five Takeaways for Tomorrow’s Workforce from the Forbes Equal Pay Day Forum

The room buzzed. Pulses quickened. As women stepped through the heavy doors of Forbes on Fifth, we knew that something big was happening.

Convening change-makers, activists, and founders from a variety of backgrounds, the Forbes Equal Pay Day Forum asked action-oriented women to approach the haystack of equal pay - and move the needle.

Thrilled to be there and caught up in the energy that swept through the room, I thought: When women gather for a powerful purpose, grateful for the progress made but deeply aware of the work left to be done,?anything can happen. And tomorrow's workforce, I added silently as we settled in our seats, should hear this wisdom too.

Here are five takeaways from the Forbes Equal Pay Day Forum to share with the next gen now:

1. BE FEARLESSLY TRUE TO YOU – Diane von Furstenberg

Referencing her mother’s liberation from the WWII concentration camps and the doctors’ subsequent warning that she would be unlikely to have children, designer, philanthropist, author and icon Diane von Furstenberg described her life like “a green shoot that came out of the ashes.” “My birth,” she noted sagely, “was a triumph over misery…In a weird way, the minute I was born I had already won.”

And like more green shoots keening towards sunlight, the audience leaned into her words.

“My mother was clearly very strong,” she continued, “and two things she taught me [were] that fear is not an option…and no matter what, you cannot be a victim. Ever.”

“In order not to be a victim, you have to be true to yourself. Because if you are true to yourself, it’s a lot of work…but you are free. Even if you are in jail, you are free if you are true to yourself.”?

Yes, nodded the women around me, and it was as if all of us were taking mental notes to pass her words forward. And yes, nodded Luvvie Ajayi Jones, as she took over the mic.

2. MAKE UNAPOLOGETIC TROUBLE – Luvvie Ajayi Jones

I sat forward in my chair when author, speaker and entrepreneur Luvvie Ajayi Jones began to speak, because when I interviewed her a few years ago, the seriousness with which she answered girls’ questions thrilled me to no end. Watching her on the Forbes stage, I was overwhelmed all over again.

As if she was looking straight into the future and addressing tomorrow’s workforce, Jones began:

“I basically created a life being a professional troublemaker…I consider someone who is a professional troublemaker as somebody who is necessary in every room. Because to live in a deeply unjust world, when you make professional trouble, good trouble, it means you are somebody who is fighting against the status quo – which is injustice.”

You could have heard a pin drop as she continued.

“We’re here because women get paid so little…compared to men. To be a professional troublemaker is to also be somebody who is elevating and disrupting that.”

And disrupting unjust workplace practices is exactly what Reshma Saujani is all about.

3. DEMAND YOUR WORTH – Reshma Saujani

Reshma Saujani, already a champion of the next generation having founded Girls Who Code and a personal hero of mine (I am honored to have her words gracing the cover of The Epic Mentor Guide), launched Moms First in 2020 and is making waves in the workplace pool.

Explaining that as many of her Girls Who Code members were forced to abandon their computer science goals to become sibling caretakers during the pandemic, and most of her leadership team was made up of moms who found themselves suddenly needing to work without childcare, Saujani saw a major portion of the workforce brought to the brink.

“We saw 11 million women leave the workforce overnight.”

“The implications of living in a country,” she argued, adding “the only industrialized nation that doesn’t have paid leave; the implications of living in a country that doesn’t have affordable childcare, where 40% of parents today are in debt because of pre-K,” are drastic and women are the key to any solution the future holds. Action is needed, urged Saujani, and that starts when women say enough is enough.

4. REMEMBER: YOU ARE NOT THE PROBLEM – Bonnie Chiurazzi

While focusing our efforts outward, the evening went on to teach us, it is also vital that we look inward. Remind yourself, said Glassdoor’s Director of Market Insights Bonnie Chiurazzi, that pay inequality is not your fault.

It was an important point, and another moment where the audience stilled.

“Ladies,” she stated firmly, “you are not the problem.”

“You’re being paid less because we are dealing with a legacy of inequality in the workplace. And while it may be true that you still have to work twice as hard to get that raise or that promotion or that job, you’re not working twice as hard to overcome any personal deficiencies.”

“You’re working twice as hard, or likely much harder if you are a woman of color," Chiurazzi emphasized, "to overcome deficiencies that exist in corporate America.”

So how to combat that? Have authentic and transparent conversations about work, advised Chiurazzi, using trusted resources like those at Glassdoor. Research what your role is worth, talk with pay experts before you negotiate your next salary increase, and lean on other women to “get a pulse on how they might handle” the same situation.

Where to start? Forbes CRO Sherry Phillips had that answer.

5. START AT HOME – Sherry Phillips

Commenting on Forbes’ International Women's Day gatherings in Abu Dhabi and Mexico City that centered on agents of change, Sherry Phillips noted that this work “begins at home.”

“We know at Forbes that we have work to do,” Phillips said genuinely, and referencing recent Glassdoor data said “only 4% of companies are meeting equitable goals. So, there’s lots of work for all of us to do in this space, and we know it. And that’s why we’re here.”

That’s why we’re here, we whispered to each other.

And the whisper roared as we rose to our feet applauding at the end of the night.

Change was in the air.

“How do you change the world when you don’t start by changing the room that you are in first?” Asked Jones at one point – and she is asking all of us.?

Whether you are in a classroom, a locker room, a board room, or a room of energized women assembled by Forbes, ask yourself how you can bring change to that space?

Maybe by being fearlessly true to your values.

By making a little trouble.

By demanding your value.

?By identifying the problem.

By starting at home.

Change is sparked when companies like Forbes and Glassdoor bring us together to share ideas and challenge injustice.

Change happens when we pass these ideas on to those who will inhabit tomorrow’s workplace, ensuring that vital markers like pay, promotions, credit and childcare are equitable and available to all.

I left the Forbes forum with a lift in my step, encouraged by the proposals offered and emboldened to pass them forward. To watch the entire Forum, head to the Forbes link here. And to share more views from these epic speakers with those around you, see the book releases below.

Let’s all make a little trouble – ?in pursuit of a more equal future. For our generation and the next. Like professionals.

Looking forward,

Illana?

êXTRA: Here are three books by Forbes Equal Pay speakers you won’t want to miss: OWN IT by Diane von Furstenberg; PAY UP by Reshma Saujani; and PROFESSIONAL TROUBLEMAKER by Luvvie Ajayi Jones. Bonus book: RISING TROUBLEMAKER for the next generation, also by Luvvie Ajayi Jones.