Women in Corporate America

Corporations play a significant role in the structure of the economy and how we conduct business. Today, corporations are involved in every aspect of our lives, including our entertainment, transportation, food and financial decisions. However, if you read the names of the top executives for many of these companies, it becomes clear that something is missing -- women. Women are significantly under-represented in senior management for many of the most successful companies.

Although women are making inroads in lower- and middle-management positions, they have been unable to reach the heights of men with similar education and experience in their fields. Research shows that even when women are represented in lower-level management positions throughout a company, this does not translate to the C-suite level. In 2010, women made up 47 percent of the workforce, comprising 52 percent of management and professional positions. However, women only held 14 percent of executive officer positions at Fortune 500 companies and only three percent of CEO positions.

Women of color are faring even worse. According to a report released by Catalyst, a research firm focused on expanding opportunities for women in business, 37 percent of African-American women saw opportunities for advancement to senior management positions decline, in contrast to Latinas and Asian women, who believed their opportunities were slightly increasing. Some of the barriers African-American women feel they face in business include more frequent questioning of their credibility and authority, a lack of institutional support and exclusion from informal networks.

So why aren't women advancing to senior leadership positions? And what needs to happen to allow more women and women of color to rise to the top management positions in the world's most successful corporations?

I believe one solution is to start by speaking the language of business -- profits. What many companies fail to realize is that investing in women is good for the bottom line. Companies with the highest representation of women on their top management teams perform better financially than companies with the lowest representation. Based on research performed by Catalyst on more than 350 Fortune 500 companies, the businesses with the highest women's representation on their top management teams experienced a higher ROI than the companies with lower representation.

Worldwide, women are also an increasing demographic, poised to become one of the largest emerging markets for businesses. More than solely focusing on women as consumers, however, corporations should hire women in senior positions to include women's perspectives in decision-making for this growing demographic. Investing in women can only strengthen a corporation's understanding of women consumers and further expand profits.

Support by corporations to foster women's leadership is needed now more than ever. As the recession continues, workers -- especially women who might once have strived for senior positions -- are re-evaluating their corporate careers and opting to open their own businesses or pursue careers in other work environments. Corporations are witnessing a drain on talent which could be challenging to overcome if no action is taken to address the problem.

Companies need to examine the structural issues that still prevent women from advancing at work. Often women receive less specialized development than their male counterparts in the form of access to high-potential groups and internal networks. Women also tend to receive less support than men during vital transitions, such as a promotion or new role, when it is most critical.

In an effort to combat some of the issues preventing women from reaching senior leadership positions, corporations should consider implementing formal initiatives to support women and women of color in their efforts to secure leadership positions. Some of these include:

• Establishing a formal succession plan. Organizations that make formal plans to replace senior staff have more women in senior positions.
• Give women equal access to formal training and other growth opportunities.
• Provide women with mentors to help encourage them to proactively seek opportunities and expand their experience levels.
• Make human resource policies more family-friendly and supportive to women.

The bottom line is that corporations need to change to provide equal access and opportunities to all employees, regardless of race or gender. I am calling on each of you to promote change within your own work environments by challenging current practices preventing women from advancing to senior-level positions. Increasing the number of women in leadership positions in corporate America not only makes good moral sense, but good business sense as well.

 

Follow Christine Bork on Twitter: www.twitter.com/YWCAChicagoCEO

Comments

[48thGuy]

08:46 AM on 06/22/2011

Christine, until women become risk takers that glass ceiling will remain firmly in place. Women opt out for the easy road in Corporate America, a job! Men are risk takers, usually are associated with starting a business and as such have leadership positions. You gotta put some skin in the game to get some respect, and women are risk adverse! Do you really think a woman cares about business when Gucci is on the brain? So, until the boss really is the 'Boss', women will continue to be spokes in the wheel.

[Laure de Vaugelas]

08:34 PM on 06/20/2011

This Boy's Club culture extends further than Corporate America. As an architect in Australia, the imbalance of women versus men who have their own architectural practice is quite blatant. Women are employees, not employers and this because of a complex range of factors. I think it would be dumbing down the issue by blaming it all on men.

I have written a post on my blog about a very similar topic, feel free to come and have a look. Aloud. aims to highlight and promote the work of independent women in the creative fields.
Would love to see you there, Cheers, Laure for Aloud.

http://aloudblog.wordpress.com/

[singermuse]

09:48 PM on 06/19/2011

Is this a rhetorical question? Women are still not advancing, because Men will not let them. Corporate Leadership is still very much an Old Boys Club, and women are systematically excluded in multiple ways. Technically it's not "legal" but there are always ways around the legalities. One very major way is the automatic sidelining of women who dare to pursue motherhood, one of the worst things a woman can to do to stall or even stop any advancement in business. It's not nice, it's downright unfair and ugly, but it is still the way things are at this time.

[jhNY]

02:11 PM on 06/17/2011

"Corporations play a significant role in the structure of the economy and how we conduct business." So true.

[Nakeva Corothers]

01:43 PM on 06/17/2011

Corporate America needs to be ware of the numbers,we all do. Women need to take the action, not the company. If there is leadership then any woman can find ways to offer solutions to a company that would increase the chances of making an impact irrelevant to gender or race. Women in small business already take this role because they are on a path where they are in charge and its their business to make decisions and be at the "top." Creating awareness is positive, but creating special programs is not the best course of action. Each company provides training opportunities and resources to information. If the women in that company don't make use of those resources, then it doesn't count to say they are less likely to succeed. If, however, they request access to those resources and are denied and continuously passed over for the better training and opportunities, a discussion with human resources is in order. Its up to the women in business to want opportunity and demand equality through action rather than expectation of something being given to them just because they are women or women of color.

[edtastic]

01:18 PM on 06/17/2011

There should be no special programs for either gender because anything else would be unequal. No special effort should be made to promote one gender over another. If women make up 52% of managers then feminist need to find something else to complain about. The few top corporate jobs are not going to affect 99.9% of the population and we don't need to waste our time on a awareness campaign to promote a few very successful women into these positions.

Trying to find the victims at the top levels of corporate America reveals how desperate modern feminist are to find evidence of discrimination. With 60% of women getting college degrees it is almost guaranteed women will be in the majority of leadership positions and apparently at 52% they already are. Women can manage just fine on their own so feminist need to give it a rest. Either way the male population entering the workforce is not educated enough to overtake women, so our resources would be better applied in getting the next generation of boys to reach academic parity with females.

[jhNY]

02:17 PM on 06/17/2011

Here's a shorter version oif your comment: aw, she's all right. let her get up by herself.

Women's pay is not equal to men's pay for the same work right now, even though their education level is higher. Why should we work to correct a disparity, and favor men's education in the next generation, when already, men are paid more while having less?

[edtastic]

07:02 PM on 06/17/2011

Prove it and when I say prove I mean at each and every company, job, and position you are referring too because the over generalizations are neither fair nor accurate. Discrimination is worth big bucks in the form of law suites so if you have a case then file it. There are thousands of women lawyers graduating without good employment options they could make industry out of this. To be honest I don't trust the pay gap numbers and the pay gap does not exist for young women anyway even if I did.

The indifference women are showing towards boys falling behind points to a gender war not a quest for equality.

[Tim Karnes]

12:00 AM on 06/18/2011

That's a ridiculous fallacy. Everyone who spouts it is uninformed or willfully misleading. Every large corporation these days assigns each job a pay grade. If you have that job, you're in that pay grade, male, female, or Martian. The lawyers would have a field day tearing apart the corporations if they didn't do this..