International Women’s Day: The perfect time to focus on a new era of talent
The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is “make it happen.” And that seems entirely fitting in light of the results of our recent survey about female millennials’ career mindset. PwC’s report—The female millennial: A new era of talent—demonstrates that women millennials are indeed ready to “make it happen.” But they can’t do it alone. Businesses, communities and governments need to do our share to reap the benefits of this remarkable momentum.
Released to mark International Women’s Day, our survey is PwC’s latest deep dive into millennial priorities and values, and it is our second report focusing specifically on millennial women. For this report, we surveyed over 10,000 millennials (born between 1980 and 1995), of whom more than 8,700 were women. Our respondents came from 75 countries. The results show that we truly are in a new era of talent—an era where millennial women at varying stages of their careers have unprecedented levels of confidence, ambition, earning power, and education.
Here are a few highlights:
? Education: Globally, women earn more bachelor and masters’ degrees than men, forming the majority of tertiary degree level students in 93 countries, as compared to 46 where men are the student majority.
? Ambition: Fifty-three percent of the women millennials surveyed ranked opportunities for career progression as the most attractive employer trait. Career progression outranked flexibility, benefits and even wages and financial incentives. A lack of opportunities for career progression was also the most likely reason millennial women had left a former employer.
? Earning power: Globally 86% of female millennials in a relationship are part of a two-career couple, while 66% earn the same as or more than their partner or spouse. Here in the US those numbers are 90% and 74%, respectively.
It’s worth emphasizing that these results vary by country: for example, women millennials in Brazil (76%), India (76%) and Portugal (68%) are the most confident, while those in Japan (11%), Korea (18%) and Germany (19%) were least confident. In the US, the situation has recently improved, although we still have a long way to go. In our recently released Women in Work Index, which ranks 27 OECD countries based on five indicators of female economic empowerment, the US rose from 16th to 13th. That said, the US ranked 7th in 2000! Both public and private stakeholders clearly have their work cut out for them.
So what can businesses do specifically? Our survey shows that women millennials’ new career outlook values strong employer records on diversity and inclusion, flexibility, regular feedback, global mobility, and a career with a purpose. Incorporating these focus points into a talent strategy is critical for organizations positioning themselves to attract, retain, engage and develop female millennial talent.
At PwC, millennial women are a crucial demographic: women are 50% of our workforce, and millennials will comprise 80% of our workforce by next year. So we’ve invested heavily in instilling an organizational culture that advances these priorities. Like every organization, community and government, we still have more work to do, but we’ve made progress on each of these fronts. Our initiatives include reviewing diversity and sponsorship contributions as criteria for partnership, aggressively leveraging technology to increase flexibility, and moving from formal performance reviews to real-time snapshots of career development.
Our latest study shows that female millennials are poised to “lean in” and excel, but the rest of us—in both the private and public sectors--–also need to lean in to meet them. Fortunately, we are seeing progress on this front in the business world. In 2011, only 12% of CEOs said they saw low retention rates for female talent as a key business challenge and only 11% were planning major changes to policies aimed at attracting and retaining female employees. Four years later, 64% of CEOs tell us they have a diversity strategy and an additional 13% are planning to adopt one during the coming year.
Millennial women are coming of professional age at the same time as CEOs are finally recognizing the bottom-line benefits of diversity and inclusion and the business case for fully leveraging the female talent pool. It’s an auspicious time to “make it happen.”
Psychologist
9 年What a breath of fresh air! To have a male member of the species make these pronouncements. The fact is diversity in business and industry is essential to grow the economy and build an equitable society. Where every citizen both male and female feel valued members of society. Women are discrimated against in the workplace. The arguement for the reason why include they that they are not equal in strength to the men. That women are better at housework. And various other flimsy excuses as to why women are justified being excluded from management and politics. The last decade has seen an improvements for women in the workplace. However, the process appears to be very slow. Women still fear taking maternity leave for the fear of losing there footing in the workplace. And mother are constantly disadvantaged for procreating. I am aware that Price Waterhouse encourages women employee and I do not have the statistics on the women in management with Waterhouse. And I'm also wondering if the ethnic minority are considered as part of the diversity processes at Price Waterhouse. Let's all remember that, “The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.” – Jon Wolfgang von Goethe
Pharmaceutical Leader in Patient Access, Vendor Management, & Launch Excellence
9 年Thank you for writing this article and presenting at the Chamber of Commerce's Women in Business Summit! It's inspiring to hear your ideas on advancing women and millennials in the workplace. PwC is, and will continue to be, a leader in creating innovative professional programs.
Deaf Leper Wall Decor
9 年Yes, Bob Korzeniowski, MBA, CPA, PMP I tried to bridge Mr. Moritz's point of view and yours because I truly believe the New Era of Talent must indeed occur but won't while women play mind games with the concept of diversity (and even shrug off the cruelty they display towards each other and how they gang up on other women). A diversity won't be valid unless it is actually rooted in a psychic reality where connection TO reality is being reflected for mentoring. And, women ought learn that the simple decision to reject can be applied without harming the whole balance of relations and abandoned images of "womanhood".
Wild Card - draw me for a winning hand | Creative Problem Solver in Many Roles | Manual Software QA | Project Management | Business Analysis | Auditing | Accounting |
9 年Yet another article that assumes diversity is only about sex. What a narrow viewpoint. True diversity cannot happen until it is first defined properly, and narrow viewpoints like this are an obstacle to that.