Why Companies Need An Equality Health Checkup

Women and men enter the workplace at 50/50, and yet less than 5% of CEOs are women at Fortune 500 companies. Why is there such a big gap for women in leadership?

The problem is middle management, or what I call “the messy middle.” This is a time when women typically gain more responsibility at home and also at work, and when women begin dropping out of the pipeline.

For me, it was a caregiving issue: I thought I was going to have to leave the workforce once I had children. What typically happens for women in middle management is one of three things:

1. They rise to the top but have work-life balance issues.

2. They opt out completely to raise their families, and then returning is quite difficult.

3. They leave the corporate world to start their own company, which is what I did when I had three young children.

I’ve been known as the Chief Troublemaker because I wasn’t afraid to break the rules that didn’t make any sense. If you don’t break rules, you can’t create new ones for change. I wanted to write my own rules and make the exception the new norm.

So I created the un-corporate rules in my own company. I undid everything I hated about the corporate world. For example,  I created a “no regret policy,” because I never wanted anyone to say, “Shoulda, woulda, coulda.” I encouraged my employees to never miss the important stuff, such as their kid's soccer tournament, parents’ anniversary or going on a date. It required every employee in my company to create a relationship with their co-workers so they could cover for each other and be interchangeable, allowing each person to live their life with a support system at the office. It was about creating a culture of care where everyone could thrive.

Arianna Huffington once told me that she doesn’t understand why we do exit interviews. It’s obviously too late to fix the problem—they’ve already left. I started thinking about this idea. What if we do life-stage interviews? People require different things at different life stages in order to thrive. For example, we need different things when we have small children versus when we’re caring for aging parents.

Also, partnership starts at home: Men and women must equally shoulder the caregiving responsibilities so that both partners can succeed in the workplace and at home. Let’s face it, it was quite expected for women to shoulder the bulk of the household duties 100 years ago when women staying at home was the norm. Not so much today when roughly 42% of women are the family breadwinners.

Times may have changed, but expectations still need to catch up. The research shows that we’re starting to see a shift in a new direction among younger generations more equally sharing responsibilities at home. However, studies show that women today continue to shoulder the majority of the caregiving and household duties, even when they’re working full time. It’s a legacy perception that needs to be challenged and reframed. We are losing our best leaders to caregiving, yet caregiving qualities, such as empathy and compassion, make the best leaders today. Quite the contradiction.

We know that diversity is good for business: Companies with the highest representation of women on their senior teams reap 34% more profits than companies with the lowest female representation, according to Catalyst. When we achieve equality, everyone wins. Gender equality isn’t a female issue; it’s a social and economic imperative. In fact, as much as $28 trillion dollars could be added to the global GDP if we reach full gender equality by 2025.

At a time when equality and inclusivity in the workplace are big topics of conversation, why are so many companies falling short of their equality goals?

I believe we need to stop admiring the problem and start activating solutions for change. The rules of work were written many decades ago for men and by men when women weren’t in the corporate world. We need to find ways to create new workplace rules that allow people at any life stage to have a life as well as rise into leadership positions.

Change won’t happen without having clear action steps to get there and accountability measures in place for meeting diversity goals. At The Female Quotient, we’ve mapped out four equality health vitals that companies can use to gauge where they currently are in their equality journey, as well as concrete action steps on how to meet their diversity goals.

The four equality health vitals are:

PARITY:  This vital focuses on creating equal opportunities in the workplace in order for both women and men to thrive.

ADVANCEMENT: This vital is about creating pathways for women and minorities to rise up into positions of power.

CULTURE: Creating a culture of care can help attract and retain the best talent. Putting the right policies in place will go a long way towards fostering an inclusive workplace.

LEADERSHIP: For change to happen, an equality mindset must be communicated from the top-down and leaders should have accountability for reaching diversity goals.

You can learn more about the four equality health vitals in the Modern Guide To Equality.

Equality will happen only when we make a conscious decision to make it happen. It’s not a female issue. It’s not a male issue. It’s a leadership issue, and a social and economic imperative.