Why Female Leaders are Switching Jobs at a Higher Rate than Men

Why Female Leaders are Switching Jobs at a Higher Rate than Men, and 9 Steps Companies Can Take to Prevent It

“It’s not you, it’s me,” is a breakup line as old as time. It’s not one that women are saying to their employers as they take another job, though. In the case of “The Great Break Up,” a term coined by Lean In and McKinsey to describe the high amount of women leaving their current employers, career-changers are most definitely saying, “It’s you. And I deserve better.”

Breaking Down the Great Break Up

According to the eighth annual Women in the Workplace report, the largest study on the state of women in corporate America, women leaders are switching jobs at a higher rate than mean in leadership. Where are they headed? To companies that offer better growth opportunities, increased flexibility, and a real commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Like many trendy terms used to describe increased resistance or altogether departure from the corporate world (e.g., “The Great Resignation” and “Quiet Quitting”), the tremors of these movements could be observed long before the seismic event that was COVID-19. That’s to say, these cultural systemic corporate issues are not new, you’re just now realizing the effects of them as people refuse to accept it as the status quo.?

So, what can corporations due to stop the leak of female leaders and ensure their pipeline of future female talent thrives??

1. Set clear diversity and inclusion goals and cascade them to all leaders. Everyone in the organization should have clear expectations with regard to the importance of diversity and inclusion in their subunit. British consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser has openly shared their DE&I policy, and the goal to double the number of females in senior management positions from 20 to 40 percent by 2020. Most companies today have some similar DE&I targets.

2. Senior DE&I leadership. Most great leaders understand the relevance of DE&I practices; however, they also understand that DE&I leadership is a journey that involves the sponsorship of their top management. It also requires educating teams to be aware of and to resist unconscious bias. Finally, it is about making every leader responsible for educating and eradicating unconscious bias-led decision making.

3. Raise awareness of inherent biases. Be open to evaluate for competence, not style!

As Sheryl Sandberg puts it in her book Lean In, “Success and likability are positively correlated for men but negatively correlated for women.”? Socialization has taught us that men should be tough and women nice.

In her book, she points out the lack of confidence women experience, often suffering from a phenomenon called imposter syndrome, which is a psychological term that refers to a pattern of behavior wherein people—even those with adequate external evidence of success—doubt their abilities and have a persistent fear of being exposed as frauds. This has been proven to be more common among women.?

Knowing this, you can act as an ambassador for gender equality. Reach out to women you think may qualify and push to ensure an even split among men and women, even if more men than women apply, and even if it means having to fish for good female candidates. The women may not get the role, but they should be encouraged to be brave and put themselves forward. The more qualified women step forward, the better chance you have of reaching your goal of 50 percent women.

4. New manager’s training.?

At my former workplace, P&G, we ran new people manager training for anyone who recently became a people leader (within three months of promotion). One of the women’s network initiatives was to include a section on DE&I in this training. This started with the most senior leader talking about a strict anti-harassment policy, what it means to be a working mother, and the appropriate response to avoid biases. For example, the only appropriate response when your employee tells you she is pregnant is—"Congratulations.” The appropriate response to anyone crying in your office is to recognize that it is as a sign of their passion, not weakness, etc. Empathy is elicited when all managers understand the world through their female employees’ eyes. Establishing DE&I as an expectation of every young leader helps make it common practice at all levels.

5. Build women’s networks.?

We wish for a day when there will be no women-specific challenges. But until then, we have found that women’s networks and support groups in the workplace are a great way for young professional women to hear from more senior women role models. These frameworks help expand women’s connections and help them feel supported and provide a sense of belonging through sisterhood support.? If your company doesn’t have an internal women’s network, seek to create one, or search within your professional community for one to join.

6. Enroll He4She advocates.?

Diversity cannot be achieved with just a minority point of view. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said, “We should all be feminists.”? Without men caring just as much about women’s rights and appreciating female leadership traits, we will not be able to lead to the change we need in the world. Many women’s networks ask, “What do we do about the men?” We always reply with encouraging them to invite men, and to secure as many men as there are women in a leadership team, at a minimum of 30 percent. These passionate partners can then be appointed He4She advocates who can provide other men with a better understanding of the issues that face working women, role modeling for the rest of the organization.

7. Create mentorship programs. Many companies are starting to adopt mentorship programs. A mentor at work is someone (not your line manager) who advises, guides, teaches, inspires, challenges, and corrects, and serves as a role model and as a voice of experience and wisdom. A mentor cares both about the business and the individual. The mentor should not be directly involved in career decisions nor does he or she replace a coach. The mentor is there as an experienced guide to:

• Act as a challenger.
• Encourage reflection.
• Share personal experience and company perspective.
• Help identify strengths/weaknesses.
• Be politically savvy enough to connect the mentee with other valuable resources inside and outside the organization. Research has shown that employees who have mentors are twice as likely to stay in their job and have higher job satisfaction.

8. Ensure supportive policies.?

The best way to ensure that top management culture permeates the organization, is to ensure supportive policies. Here are some of the most important policies to re-examine:?

• Maternity policies—Being a new mom is a very special experience, yet many managers still encourage their female employees to “return early” or give them “some work to keep busy.” Mothering a newborn only happens once with each child. A young mother will be a better employee in the long term if she is enabled to fully devote her time to her newborn during maternity leave.?
• Flex work arrangements— This is a given after COVID-19 and the rise of the hybrid workplace, but if you’re counting flexible work arrangements out, you can also count your number of women leaders (and men for that matter) out.?
• Less than full-time/job sharing—Many companies allow young parents to come back less than full-time for a temporary period after childbirth. The common understanding is that most jobs can be adjusted to an 80 percent schedule (but the manager must be committed to having a work plan suited to 80 percent to avoid an employee being paid for 80 percent but working 130 percent). If an employee wanted to reduce their workload to 50 or 60 percent, P&G would usually design a new role (temporary assignment) for up to twelve months. Some companies also tested out job sharing (two women leaders doing the same job each at 50 percent) with some success. I, personally, went back to an 80 percent workload for three months with my two older kids, and worked on a special finance and marketing project at 60 percent for six months with my youngest. This flexibility was tremendous and helped me ease back into the role.
• Finally, maternity rooms—With more and more women planning to breastfeed their newborns for longer, maternity rooms are a necessity. These relaxation rooms should be equipped with special nap chairs and changing tables and had state-of-the-art breast pumps.?

9. Zero tolerance on harassment. Every company should have an ethics hotline where misconduct complaints can be submitted anonymously. Most critical is a zero-tolerance policy for cases of harassment and sexual abuse. In a clear case of misconduct, an employee would be immediately removed, and the case dealt with as transparently as possible for other employees and managers to see.

As a woman who spent my career in corporate, I can tell you all the effort should not be squandered by seeing the efforts through.?

The best time to change this was 20 years ago, the second-best time is now!