7 best practices for retaining & developing women at work

At the start of 2020, the gap between men and women in leadership in America was slowly but steadily closing - especially among the very highest ranks of leaders in SVP and C-Suite roles.

Women were still dramatically underrepresented - making up only 28% of SVPs and 21% of C-suite roles, respectively - and women of color were particularly left behind, but at least the numbers were trending in the right direction.

But now, thanks in no small part to the COVID-19 crisis and the myriad of ways it’s disproportionately set women in the workplace back, we are on the precipice of losing those recent gains entirely.

So what can savvy organizations do to retain and develop women workers during this challenging time?

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HERE ARE 7 best practices to incorporate now

1. Create a safe identity workspace where women can come together

Courage is derived from community. Simply coming in to work every day as one of the only women or women of color requires a reservoir of resilience that’s not always appreciated by those in their comfort zone at the office.

That’s why it’s especially important in male-dominated workplaces to create a safe space - through the creation of Employee Resource Groups, intranets, or separate communication channels - for the important work of identity expansion. Together, women share common challenges so they can identify that they’re not alone in facing them, develop skills to get outside their comfort zone and grow, and connect to foster a sense of trust and belonging.

This kind of safe space only becomes more important as women leaders rise in the ranks. As Herminia Ibarra, Robin Ely, and Deborah Kolb put it in the Harvard Business Review:

“In the upper tiers of organizations, women become increasingly scarce, which heightens the visibility and scrutiny of those near the top, who may become risk-averse and overly focused on details and lose their sense of purpose. (In general, people are less apt to try out unfamiliar behaviors or roles if they feel threatened.) Thus a safe space for learning, experimentation, and community is critical in leadership development programs for women.” (HBR)

2. Invest in women’s leadership skills

Training and development programs designed to address systemic inequities require investing in the learning and skill-building for marginalized people, specifically. This means companies committed to closing the gender leadership gap should provide exclusive access to programming designed to help women continue to develop and advance in their careers.

Why only serve women with this skill-building training? As Allison Green of Ask a Manager recently put it:

“By trying to give women some of the advantages that have been systematically denied to them and afforded to you, they are not putting you at a disadvantage; they are attempting to level the playing field.” (Ask a Manager)

3. Engage allies

While it is important to create programming specifically for women, we can’t stop there. Advancing gender equality is a cause that requires all of our involvement, regardless of our own gender identity.

In male-dominated workplaces especially, the majority of leaders calling the shots are...well, men! So if we never discuss the issues facing women with audiences across the gender spectrum, we’ll never garner the widespread support we need to solve for them.

That’s why training on subjects like everyday allyship, active bystander training, sexual harassment prevention, and curbing unconscious gender bias and microaggressions can be critically impactful for pursuing broader culture change at work.

4. Clarify the pathway to promotion

There’s a widely-cited statistic that women only apply for positions when they’re 100% qualified, whereas men set a much lower threshold for themselves. The conclusion we’re left to draw is that women lack confidence and need extra encouragement.

In fact, this often-discussed statistic comes from an unpublished, unscientific, internal study conducted at Hewlett Packard, and broader replication studies demonstrate a very different take-away: women more than men tend to value “following the guidelines” (HBR) when it comes to navigating the hiring and promotion process.

In other words: women aren’t holding themselves back due to a false perception of themselves, they’re choosing not to throw their hat in the ring for raises, promotions, and job opportunities due to a false perception of what qualifications are actually required of candidates.

Many companies still include a laundry list of nice-to-have traits and characteristics as “requirements” for new hires, regardless of how accurate they may be. To level the playing field for all workers, companies must make the pathway to promotion as explicit as possible - differentiating between what’s truly “required” versus what’s ideally “desired.” When this is the case, we see folks from across the gender spectrum apply for new opportunities at equal rates.

5. Support women of color, specifically

The concept of intersectionality - the complex and cumulative ways different forms of discrimination like racism, sexism, and classism overlap - was originally put forth by Kimberlé Crenshaw over 30 years ago, and it’s as relevant today as ever. The challenges women face at work do not look the same for all women and it’s critically important that any programming designed to retain and develop women leaders takes a nuanced approach to addressing the intersections of race, sexual orientation, age, class, ability, and more.

The latest research is clear:

Women of color face more obstacles and a steeper path to leadership, from receiving less manager support to being promoted at a slower pace.
While women in general are more likely than men to never interact with senior leaders, Black women are the most likely of all to not be exposed to senior leaders.

Black women are also the most interested in striking out on their own - perhaps due to the additional challenges faced in the workplace. They’re significantly more likely to say they intend to start a business when they leave their current job when compared with other groups of women.
And yet despite all these additional pitfalls, women of color report having the highest levels of ambition to become a top executive among all women.

Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) do a great job at providing safe spaces for employees of differing identities to come together in support of one another. It’s imperative that we continue to see more cross-ERG collaborations that address the specific experiences of women of color, women with disabilities, lesbian and bisexual women, and more, in order to bring an intersectional lens to the challenges holding these workers back, and the support needed to retain and develop them into leaders, too.

6. Identify, nurture, and develop emerging women leaders

Despite recent gains for women in the highest levels of leadership, a “broken rung” in promotions at the very first step up to manager continues to pose a major barrier:

“For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 85 women were promoted—and this gap was even larger for some women: Only 58 Black women and 71 Latinas were promoted. As a result, women remained significantly outnumbered at the manager level at the beginning of 2020—they held just 38 percent of manager positions, while men held 62 percent.” (McKinsey & Company x Lean In)

Companies committed to retaining and developing women - especially in the first 10 years of their careers - must take a proactive approach to identify and invest in emerging women leaders to close this gap.

7. Create policies that support the full lives women leaders

The COVID-19 health crisis created a new array of challenges, which disproportionately impacted women and women of color. Women are more likely than men to serve as primary caregiver for both children and elderly relatives who may be more reliant on them for support than ever. Meanwhile, the transition towards more virtual workplaces has made it difficult to draw clear boundaries between home life and work for everyone.

Organizations looking to support and retain women who are facing more stress, burnout, and competing demands on their limited time can start by resetting work-life norms and expectations. This may involve clarifying expectations around performance metrics, setting limited hours for meetings, and improving communication expectations and availability outside of normal business hours.

Actively encouraging employees to set boundaries and take advantage of flexible work options matters, too, but only when leaders are walking the talk:

“In addition, leaders can model flexibility in their own lives, which sends a message to employees that it’s okay to take advantage of flexible work options. When employees believe senior leaders are supportive of their flexibility needs, they are less likely to consider downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce.” (McKinsey & Company x Lean In)

The good news is, when organizations take steps to embrace work-life balance measures that support women, everyone wins - including workers of all genders and business’s retention rates!

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