Tag Archive for: workplace flexibility

Women Leaders – Walking Out or Walking Onwards?

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For every woman at the director level that was promoted to the next level in 2021, two women directors walked out the door of their company. Women leaders are now demanding more, and leaving their companies at unprecedented rates, according to The Women in The Workplace 2022 report by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company, who have released the research annually since 2015.

“We’re finally seeing the moment where women in leadership are voting with their feet,” said Alexis Krivkovich, a managing partner at McKinsey and cofounding report author.

In this “profound change,” women are indeed deciding to vote for the workplace they want with the most compelling power they will ever have: their presence, time and energy. Nothing short of this will shake up the workplace as we have known it. No matter the current representation, senior women are going beyond just getting access to upper levels and getting clearer on what they would like to experience and see happen there, and seeking that out. Could senior women’s participation from this place of self-empowerment catalyze greater change?

Women Aren’t Leaving, They’re Leaving For Better

“We are in the midst of a Great Breakup in corporate America. Women leaders are leaving their companies at the highest rate we’ve ever seen. They aren’t leaving the workforce entirely but are choosing to leave for companies with better career opportunities, flexibility, and a real commitment to DEI,” said Sheryl Sandberg, founder of Lean In, who leaned out of Facebook this past summer.

About 10.5% of female leaders (senior management and above) left their companies in 2021, compared to 9% of male leaders. On the average year, the spread is close with only a half-point gap.

Senior women leaders, after all the journey they have gained, aren’t walking out because they don’t think they have choices. They are walking about because they finally know they do – and they are taking their leadership assets with them in search of better opportunities. Having now recovered from pandemic job losses, women are more attuned to the relationship they want (and the ones will not tolerate) within the workplace. Women’s threshold to tolerate toxicity and inequity has been thinned, yet the broken rung is still there and the broken record of unequal outcomes plays wearingly on repeat. Women leaders are voting for the relationships they want to have with work.

Cultures That Work for Women’s Advancement

Women are as ambitious as men. Black women leaders (59%) and women of color (41%) are even more likely to want to be top executives (27%). But only 1 in 4 C-Suite leaders is a woman and only one in 20 is a woman of color. For every 100 men promoted from entry level to manager, just 87 women and 82 women of color are promoted.

And the signals that counter advancement come across in microaggressions or more overt dynamics: Female leaders are twice as likely as male counterparts to be mistaken for someone junior. 37% of women leaders said they’ve had a co-worker get credit for their idea, compared to 27% of men. Black female leaders are 1.5x more likely than women overall to have had their judgment or qualification questioned. Many women still feel undermined or passed over in the workplace.

Recognition for and Performance Consideration Of Essential Work 

While women are twice as likely to do be doing DEI-related and inclusion work that is helping with company performance, they are disproportionally carrying an increasingly ‘valued’ aspect of leadership that too often goes unrecognized and 40% say does not factor into the performance review. Meanwhile, women leaders are more burnt out (43%) than male counterparts (31%).

Flexible Work Cultures that Embody the Talk Around Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Women want a better work culture. Only 1 in 10 women wants to work on-site most of the time, and women will move for flexibility. It’s not surprising considering that 52% of senior female leaders do most of the family housework and childcare compared to 13% of senior male leaders. Women who work the way they want to feel far happier, feel they have more equal opportunity to advance and are less likely to leave their job. Remote work also provides a reprieve from office-based exclusion and as McKinsey points out, that is a fundamental issue for organizations to address: “Companies cannot rely on remote and hybrid work as a solution; they need to invest in creating a truly inclusive culture.”

Over the past two years, being in a culture committed to well-being and DEI has become more important to women, and they are 1.5 more likely to have left a job because they wanted a more inclusive culture.

Better And More Supportive Managers 

Having a supportive manager is a top three criteria for women when thinking of joining or staying with an organization. Only about half of women say their manager encourages respectful behavior on their team regularly. Less than half say their manager shows interest in their career and helps them manage their workload. Black women and Latinas are particularly less likely to feel their manager shows interest in their career, checks in on their well-being or promotes inclusion on the team. They also experience less psychological safety. Women with various intersectional identities see gaps between the lip service to inclusion and what is actually happening in their experience.

Towards A Work Paradigm That Works For Women?

Female directors are becoming more sensitive to the conditions that don’t work for them, and it matters for them and future generations. Women under 30 are highly ambitious to become senior leaders, but 2/3 would be more interested if they saw senior women with a covetable work-life balance, an increasingly important career requirement for younger people.

The press isn’t focused on how bad this attrition of women leaders is for women. It’s focused on how bad the attrition of women leaders is for organizations. McKinsey has previously found that executives teams in the top quartile of gender diversity have a 25% greater likelihood of outperformance (above average profitability) than those in the bottom. LeanIn.Org and McKinsey have several recommendations for organizations following this recent report.

Stepping back, we are interested in what happens when women leaders take stock of their own value. All along, women have been trying to pave the way for those behind them by fighting to have a seat at the table. But increasingly, women are realizing that modeling leadership is not only about the rooms you are able to walk into, but also the rooms you are willing to walk away from. Because we need to walk towards creating organizational missions and cultures where all women (and people) are welcome and supported to lead and live their lives.

That is the power of esteeming the self. How would that mindset shift, at a collective level, give rise to more change in our workplace?

By Aimee Hansen

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OP-Ed: 3 Ways Leaders Can Advocate for Workplace Flexibility

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Lauren Winans Workplace Flexibility Over the past year, businesses in virtually every industry around the world have undergone dramatic shifts, while the remote workplace has redefined workplace flexibility. Like it or not, the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked the most rapid transformation of workplace dynamics in recent memory, not the least of which has been the shift regarding the traditional employer-employee dynamic.

Increased trends in technological automation and innovations have forced us as professional leaders to rethink most of our internal strategies. From the processes we use to hire and retain talented employees, to the ways we interact with them on the clock, and even down to the resources we provide them to excel in their performance, one thing has been made clear: the pandemic has left its impact not only on society as a whole, but also on the individual as an employee.

As employees have begun to advocate for their wants and needs within the workplace, it is our duty as leaders to provide them with the environment and tools they need to feel appreciated and valued. The best way to do this is to advocate for greater flexibility within your business and its culture. By advocating for the flexibility and greater overall wellbeing of your employees, they will feel more supported. This support, in turn, boosts the confidence of your employees, allowing them to feel more deeply valued in their own abilities, both within and outside of the workplace.

Here are three ways you, as a leader, can become an advocate for the flexibility of your workplace’s culture and its employees.

1. Embrace the New Hybrid Work Model

Some employers are reluctant to change and are resistant to new ways of working for them and their employees alike. They may think that methods which worked well for the past several decades prior to the pandemic can continue to work just as well more than a year later. Employers may have a fear of the unknown or a desire to focus on other priorities for their business. Ultimately, it all comes down to an organization’s leaders–if leaders can acknowledge that the dynamic between them and their employees has shifted, and changes are required, half the battle is already won. When that acknowledgement is avoided, true change becomes impossible.

Many employers are permanently implementing remote work and hybrid working arrangements, providing bonuses for employees who worked extra hours during the pandemic, conducting compensation studies to ensure their pay rates are competitive, and adding benefits like additional therapy visits, meditation, and mindfulness training. Some employers are also adding more paid holidays to their workplace calendar, encouraging vacation day use, or bringing in freelancers, contractors, and consultants to help with complex projects and increased workloads.

Implementing a hybrid work environment can benefit employers in many ways, not the least of which is the reduction in size of their real estate footprint, which lowers operating expenses. For instance, implementing a hybrid work model shows employees that flexibility in their workplace environment is a priority for their leaders, allowing those leaders to retain talented employees for longer periods of time. This hybrid environment allows talented employees to juggle their priorities (such as caring for children or aging parents) while remaining employed without the fear of having to choose between their personal priorities or their career.

2. Revisit (and Revamp) Your Hiring and Retention Strategy

The number one thing employers can do is to ensure workplace flexibility is to have a clearly defined talent strategy; one that includes an aspirational vision or mission that leaders and HR can use as a guidepost. That guidepost is then used to update, change, or create practices and rewards that are aligned to the aspirational vision of a company’s leadership, which should be well-known throughout the organization. It should be communicated clearly and often, praised when demonstrated, and discussed regularly in large company-wide meetings and small team meetings alike. Great, talented employees need to know what they are working for, what they are working toward, and that their efforts are recognized, appreciated, and rewarded.

The recent hiring crisis our nation is facing exemplifies this point. Our current shortage of workers is impacting the ability of HR teams to focus on enhancing their people strategy, resulting in higher turnover rates that lead to a larger amount of open positions that are hard to fill. It’s a vicious cycle that has led many organizations to bring in HR consultants who can help employers and their teams tackle greater workloads in a shorter period of time. However, many HR professionals themselves are completely burned out after everything the pandemic threw at them. Some are shifting career paths, moving on to companies that provide them with more support, or leaving the workforce entirely.

If business leaders and employers are able to successfully adapt to new ways of working, and thinking about work such as implementing a hybrid work environment, this allows them to increase the size of their talent pool–particularly for positions that are difficult to fill. Hybrid work models likewise allows for greater inclusion, making it possible for companies to employ those with disabilities that keep them from a traditional onsite office setting. By increasing the size of their talent pool, employers make it easier on themselves to recruit for positions that would otherwise be hard to fill.

3. Consciously Provide Employees Opportunities to Thrive

The events of the past year have made it clear that employees crave support from employers to help them better balance their lives. Employees want to work for strong leaders, want to contribute to something bigger than themselves, to take care of their families, and to maintain their health and wellbeing. All of these needs require flexibility on behalf of the employer, and while employers are not expected to meet all of an employee’s personal needs, making conscious choices to provide employees every opportunity to thrive is what helps retain great employees.

By focusing your company’s internal people strategy to create a more flexible workplace environment and culture, your organization can focus more on how to foster the wellbeing of its employees. Companies that are more focused on the wellbeing of their employees will find it easier to attract and retain talent, combat burnout, and increase productivity. When employees feel supported, they’re more confident in their abilities at work. It’s no wonder that employees are looking for employers who have been or are ready to embrace this dynamic.

Written by Lauren Winans, CEO – Next Level Benefits

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