By Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of The Glass Hammer
“There isn’t a glass ceiling, just a thick layer of men” quipped the ever sharp Laura Liswood last week, and this is my favorite description to date of what is preventing women from advancing to executive management and the boardroom.
Others talk about the sticky floor or the marzipan layer preventing women from getting to the top. In the run up to the 100th International women’s day, themed “Equal Access to Education, Training and Science and Technology: Pathway to Decent Work for Women,” the discussion turns to creating a more robust pipeline of female leaders as the statistics don’t show great progress overall – as The White House Project reports, only about 16-18% of leadership roles in almost any industry are held by women. Yet women have long outpaced men in education (with almost 60% of college graduates now female), and capable, highly trained young women are flooding into the workforce.
Some companies are incredibly advanced in their gender work because they take it seriously. They understand, from both a human capital and a consumer perspective, that women are the next big business opportunity. Building stronger, more effective companies means developing and utilizing all of the talent available.