California Passes New Legislation to Put More Women on Boards: Why This Matters

Patrick McGreevy of the Los Angeles Times writes that in August 2018, the California legislature passed a bill, approved on a 23–9 vote, requiring firms based in the state to include women on their boards. This bill mandates publicly held corporations in California to have at least one woman by 2019. By 2021, at least two women will be required for boards with five or fewer directors, while at least three will be required for boards of six or more. The coauthors of this bill, state senator Hannah-Beth Jackson and senate leader Toni Atkins, explained that because only 15 percent of the directors of public corporations in California are women, while women make up 52 percent of the state’s population, women’s interests are not adequately represented on boards. In an earlier post, I wrote about the benefits of diversifying boards:

  • Boards set long-term direction and policies, including those that create family-friendly workplaces.
  • Boards are in charge of hiring and firing CEOs. Research shows that people tend to hire others like them. With few women and minorities on boards, talented women and minorities may be overlooked for CEO roles, keeping the glass ceiling in place.
  • Companies with more diverse boards pay higher dividends and enjoy more stable stock prices.
McGreevy notes that Senators Jackson and Atkins agree that having more women on boards will benefit the economy. The senators also stated, “We are not going to ask anymore. We are tired of being nice. We are tired of being polite. We are going to require this [change].” Vanessa Fuhrmans and Alejandro Lazo of the Wall Street Journal explain that “the U.S. has no federal requirement for female representation on company boards and no other U.S. state has successfully pushed such a mandate.” In contrast, the Guardian reports that the European Union has proposed that boards increase female directors to as high as 40 percent, following similar mandates in several other European countries. This follows a trend in the EU, where the number of women on the boards of the largest companies more than doubled between 2005 and 2015. Once again, California leads the way for the United States. Change doesn’t happen without pressure and legislation. Those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo will do so—unless they have no choice. Electing women to public office will keep moving us forward. What other legislative goals might improve representation for women in the corporate workplace?   Photo courtesy of rawpixel.com.]]>

Why Gender- and Race-Blind Hiring Does Not Work to Combat Bias

Two years ago, my niece, an engineer in her twenties with solid work experience, started a new job about which she was very excited. She was one of very few women in this engineering company, which was not unusual. When she returned from maternity leave about six months ago, after having her first child, she was treated so badly by her male manager that she eventually resigned. After her return from maternity leave, her manager took away her meaningful projects and gave her boring work that no one in the company cared about. He denied her requests for flex time, for permission to occasionally work remotely, and for permission to leave early on days when she had medical appointments. He made disparaging remarks about her needing breaks to pump and made comments that implied she was useless to him because she would probably have more babies. She complained to HR who said nothing could be done. She could not thrive there. With every day that passed, she felt worse about the company and began to doubt herself. She left. Organizations think they can solve the problems of underrepresentation of white women and women and men of color in their workforce by using gender- and race-blind résumé screening to eliminate bias in the hiring process. Katharine Zaleski of the New York Times describes “blind hiring” as a dangerous trend. In this process, the names of candidates are removed from résumés and voices are altered during phone interviews to “mask” the gender and race of candidates in an attempt to eliminate bias. Zaleski cites studies showing that blind hiring does not work because

  • The résumés of white women and women and men of color still get screened out when gaps in a résumé signal the applicant is probably a woman who took time out for caregiving, or when the names of colleges, college majors, or volunteer activities indicate the applicant may be a person of color.
  • Even if the blind résumé gets a candidate through an initial round of screening, the biases of hiring managers kick in later during the traditional in-person interview.
  • Using blind-hiring processes does nothing to create organizational cultures where white women and women and men of color can thrive. Once hired, they will not stay if the organization has not worked to create an inclusive culture where diversity is valued.
Zaleski notes that blind hiring “is a misguided distraction from the hard work of evaluating and fixing the ways in which their cultures drive out” white women and women and men of color. My niece now works for a different company. Her new boss is a woman with young children who is relaxed and confident about parents being good workers. The organization has solid family-friendly policies and practices. My niece says her goal is to work hard, do her best work, and advance as a professional in her new company. In other words, she feels she can thrive there. Her old company pushed her out and lost a valuable employee because of gender biases. That didn’t have to happen.   Photo by Amtec Staffing, CC BY-SA 2.0.  ]]>

Invisible Victims of Sexual Harassment: Hotel and Blue-Collar Workers

The tidal wave of public accusations and firings of high-profile men for sexual harassment and assault, known as the #MeToo movement, has swept across several sectors and industries in recent weeks, including technology, entertainment, finance, and government. But not everyone who experiences sexual harassment and assault as an employee feels included in the #MeToo movement. Hotel and blue-collar workers are often invisible victims of sexual harassment for whom participating in the #MeToo movement either is too dangerous or does not help them. Benjamin Mueller of the New York Times explains that hotel workers, especially housekeepers and janitors, are particularly vulnerable to being sexually harassed because they work alone. While some states and several cities have passed laws to protect hotel workers, hotels tend to put the needs and experiences of guests, especially VIPs, before those of employees. Consequently, workers do not trust management to do anything about their complaints and fear being fired as troublemakers if they do report harassment. Immigrant workers are especially vulnerable because of limited job opportunities. A union survey of hotel workers in Chicago found that 58 percent of them had been sexually harassed by a guest, so this is no small problem. Difficulties for blue-collar workers were recently revealed in an exposé of sexual harassment at Ford Motor Company written by Susan Chira and Catrin Einhorn of the New York Times. The most interesting point about the situation at Ford is that sexual harassment is not a new problem there. Women at Ford filed and won a lawsuit for $22 million in the 1990s for sexual harassment and assault in two Chicago plants. The women endured being groped or rubbed against, male colleagues masturbating in front of them, and offers from supervisors for better assignments in exchange for sex—with retribution if they refused. A number of these Ford women worked with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in the 1990s to sue the company and won a settlement, but twenty-five years later, at these same two plants, women are subjected to many of the same abuses. Chira and Einhorn report that when the women complained in the 1990s, they were, “mocked, dismissed, threatened and ostracized.” Many of the men whom they filed complaints against kept their jobs after the settlement, while the women were asked to leave. New sexual harassment lawsuits have been filed with a recent settlement by Ford for $10 million, but, in spite of lots of sexual harassment training, the culture of the organization has never changed. The story of sexual harassment at Ford shows the challenges of transforming an organization’s culture. After the lawsuit of the 1990s, the company did not act aggressively enough to root out the problem. Instead, they

  • Delayed firing those accused.
  • Let sexual harassment training wane.
  • Failed to stop retaliation.
  • Failed to staff an antiharassment hotline. They published the number but calls were not returned.
  • Instituted policies that required witnesses to prove a claim of harassment.
Chira and Einhorn note that while senior leaders at Ford currently make pronouncements about not tolerating sexual harassment as a company, employees say, “They don’t even go on the floor, so they don’t know what goes on.” Blue-collar women at Ford now feel that not only does the #MeToo movement not help them, even lawsuits do not work to improve their work environment. It’s easy to understand how they may feel invisible. We must work together to make their situation visible, amplify their voices, and put pressure on all companies to change their cultures to be safe for workers. As the story of the Ford women demonstrates, lawsuits and training are clearly not enough.   Photo by Diego Torres Silvestre, CC BY 2.0.      ]]>

Good News: Three Strategies That Are Changing Attitudes toward Women

There is good news on the horizon about gender stereotypes in the media. I wrote in my book New Rules for Women: Revolutionizing the Way Women Work Together about the power media images have to reinforce negative stereotypes of women as sex objects. These images communicate that the only thing that matters about women and girls is their appearance. There are still too many images of women as sex objects in advertising, but Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times reports on an exciting new study from Getty Images, a major supplier of stock photos that appear in ads, on billboards, and in blogs. Stock photos are important, Miller explains, because they “reflect the culture at a moment in time.” Miller reports that Getty Images found that over the past decade, from 2007 to 2017, the most sold images for the search term “women” have evolved from photos of naked, or nearly naked, models to photos of women demonstrating physical or professional prowess where their appearance isn’t the point. According to Miller, Pam Grossman, director of visual trends at Getty Images, explains that the top selling image in 2017 for the search term “woman” was of a woman hiking a rocky trail in Banff National Park, alone, on the edge of a cliff. Grossman notes that this is an image about power, freedom, and trusting yourself. The woman in this image is wearing a down jacket and a wool cap, and her face isn’t visible. The message of this image is what’s important is not what you look like but what you are doing. This is an empowering message for women and girls. We should also note that the most downloaded images, though, are of young Caucasian women. “You cannot be what you cannot see” is the unofficial tagline of the collection of stock photos called the Lean In collection at Getty Images. Miller explains that a large collection of fourteen thousand stock photos was developed in 2014 by Getty Images in collaboration with Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In nonprofit organization. Their goal was “to seed media with more modern, diverse and empowering images of women.” Miller notes that of the fifteen most downloaded images in the Lean In collection,

  • four are of fathers playing with children
  • four are of girls and women involved in science and engineering
  • four are of women in business or school settings
  • three are of women athletes
Having these more diverse images available to the public has helped shift cultural attitudes about gender in the media. In addition, social media pressure on large corporations to include empowering messages about women in their advertising, rather than showing women as sex objects to sell products, is starting to have an impact. My heart soars every time I see the General Electric (GE) ads on television showing women and girls being celebrated as scientists and engineers. Government regulations can help, too. Miller explains that in 2017, “Britain’s advertising regulator announced rules banning ads that promote gender stereotypes, sexually objectify women or promote unhealthy body images.” We could do this in the United States, too. We can all positively change attitudes about women. Here are some easy strategies:
  • Pressure companies to promote healthy and empowering images of women and girls using social media. You can start a campaign on social media.
  • Demand that legislators support laws and regulations that promote healthy and empowering messages about girls and women. You can organize this kind of pressure at the local or state level, and you can run for office yourself to accomplish these goals.
  • Volunteer with a nonprofit that is working to advance the empowerment of women and girls.
If we all get involved, we can make a difference. What are you doing to make a difference? Photo courtesy of WOCinTech Chat (CC BY 2.0)]]>

How Technology Companies Can Hire and Retain More Women

For some time now, technology companies have acknowledged that women are underrepresented in their companies in technology and leadership positions. Both large and small companies in Silicon Valley have publicly announced their intentions to increase the representation of women and minorities in their ranks, yet not much progress has been made. Katharine Zaleski, the cofounder of a company that helps clients diversify their workforces, writes in the New York Times that a big part of the solution could come from making changes in the interview process. She maintains that often well-intentioned, but clueless, men send clear messages to women during the interview process that they are not welcome or valued. But sometimes these interviewers are not well-intentioned. In one example, Zaleski set up an interview with a tech company for an African American woman software engineer. Zaleski recounts, “after meeting with the hiring panel, she [the applicant] withdrew her application, telling us she felt demeaned by the all-white male group that failed to ask her any questions about her coding skills.” In fact, one of the men told her that because she wasn’t a “cultural fit,” there was no need to proceed with technical questions. But what does it mean to be a “cultural fit?” Zaleski suggests that the template for “fit” is based on young white men. What can companies do to be successful in hiring diverse candidates? Zaleski offers these tips:

  • Include women in the hiring process by intentionally forming diverse interview panels.
  • Make current female employees available to speak to candidates about their experience in the company.
  • Make themselves appealing to female candidates by telling them not only about their ping pong tables and retreats but also about their parental leave policies, childcare programs, and breast-pumping rooms. Emphasizing these policies demonstrates that the company has a culture that values and includes women.
  • Hold webinars for potential candidates led by female employees who talk about how the organization is working to become more inclusive. There is a lot of negative press about tech companies that makes women skeptical about whether they will be valued, and companies need to address these concerns directly.
Let’s be clear: while these steps will help with hiring, retention is another matter. My niece recently returned to work in a technology company after giving birth to her first child, and her manager is unsupportive. The first thing her manager said to her upon returning to work was, “How many more are you planning to have and how soon?” He did not even welcome her back and he is unhappy that she needs breaks to pump. She no longer wants to work there and is actively looking for another job. Does your company make it clear that they value women? Please share with us what efforts your organization makes to be inclusive of women. Photo courtesy of MDGovpics (CC BY 2.0)    ]]>

6 Steps That Can Help Women Advance in Law Firms

Progress has been very slow for women’s advancement in law firms. Why is this the case? As Elizabeth Olson of the New York Times reports, women are

  • Slightly over 50 percent of current law school graduates (and have been for a long time)
  • Under 35 percent of lawyers at law firms
  • Only 20 percent of equity partners, where the highest compensation and best opportunities for leadership exist
Olson cites a recent study by Anne Urda of Law360 that found that “only nine of 300 firms surveyed had a lawyer work force that was 50 percent or more female.” Olson notes that a number of recent gender bias lawsuits have been filed against law firms alleging substantial gender pay disparities and discrimination for either associates or partners, reflecting
  • Substantially lower starting salaries for female associates compared to their male counterparts
  • Promotions for female associates without commensurate pay increases
  • Female partners being excluded from meetings about client matters, not being allowed to pitch to firm clients, and being thwarted in their efforts to assume greater leadership
  • Company tolerance for female partners being targeted for harassment and humiliation by firm leaders and peers
  • Being made nonequity partners rather than equity partners, where the compensation levels are higher and the opportunities for leadership available
Shira A. Scheindlin, a recently retired federal district court judge writes that in her courtroom, it was rare for female lawyers to have a lead role or to speak at all. The talking was done primarily by white men, with women sitting at the counsel table, usually junior and silent, although they were clearly the ones most familiar with the details of the case. In a study that she recently conducted with the New York Bar Association, the gender of the lawyers who primarily spoke in court in 2,800 cases over four months was recorded. Scheindlin found that
  • Women were the lead lawyers for private parties barely 20 percent of the time.
  • Overall, women were lead counsel for only 25 percent of criminal and commercial cases in courtrooms across New York.
Without the opportunity to be in the lead counsel role, women find it hard to advance in law firms. What can be done?  Scheindlin suggests the following:
  1. Clients can demand that their legal teams be diverse.
  2. Law firms can take concrete steps to pay women and men at the same rate for the same work.
  3. Firms can ensure that junior female lawyers participate in the same number of depositions as their male counterparts.
  4. Firms can ensure that every trial team has at least one woman.
  5. Firms can ensure that women are meeting clients at the same rate as men.
  6. Law firms can make sure that bright, aggressive women are given the same opportunities for leadership positions as their equally qualified male colleagues.
These are serious and concrete steps that can remove the barriers to success for women in law firms. Isn’t it about time?   Photo courtesy of Cal Injury Lawyer (CC Public Domain Mark 1.0)]]>

Why Men Need Women at Work: What Men’s Hormones Have to Do with It

Therese Huston of the New York Times writes that “history has long labeled women as unreliable and hysterical because of their hormones.” Interestingly, new research shows that men’s hormones fluctuate, too, both naturally and artificially, with possibly dire consequences for the rest of us. Prescriptions for testosterone supplements, often for a condition called “low-T,” are heavily advertised on television and social media and have increased from 1.3 million to 2.3 million in just four years. As Huston notes, the availability and popularity of these supplements makes new research on testosterone possible. She reports the following findings:

  • When men take testosterone, they make more impulsive—and often faulty—decisions.
  • High testosterone can make it harder to see flaws in one’s reasoning.
  • Testosterone may lower activity in the brain’s orbitofrontal cortex, which affects self-evaluation, decision making, and impulse control, and cause overconfidence in one’s reasoning ability.
  • Fluctuations in testosterone shape one’s willingness to collaborate.
So, am I the only one who is nervous about our impulsive president of the United States, who has a hard time seeing flaws in his reasoning and is high on overconfidence and low on willingness to collaborate? He controls the nuclear codes, surrounds himself with military generals (all white men), and threatens war on other nations in early morning tweets. The White House needs to place a lot of strong women in influential positions to offset all this testosterone, but the picture is not a good one. Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post cites research by economist Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute that shows that “the highest-paid staffers in the Trump White House are primarily men: Nearly 74 percent of the top 23 staffers are male. By contrast, in the Obama White House of 2015 only 52 percent of the highest-paid staffers were men.” And did I mention that the gender pay gap has also tripled in Trump’s White House? In a previous article, I wrote about research that suggests that both race and gender diversity improve organizational performance and decision making due to the following:
  1. Better and deeper critical thinking. The presence of cognitive friction might mean that people work harder to examine their own assumptions and deepen their reflections in the presence of conflicting opinions and information.
  2. More engagement with different perspectives. Different perspectives bring new ideas, and working harder to understand a different perspective can bring about a change in position.
  3. Better error detection. Deeper critical thought and engagement provide more opportunity for errors to be revealed.
  4. Less groupthink. Individuals are more likely to form their own opinions in diverse teams than to just follow along with those like them.
We need a balance of perspectives—and hormones—for good leadership in our government and organizations. In fact, our survival may depend on it. Have you ever worked somewhere with an unbalanced team? If so, how did it affect decision making and collaboration at your organization?   Photo courtesy of businessforward. (CC BY-SA 2.0)]]>

How to Report to a Younger Boss

“I do not feel that my years of experience are valued or respected by my boss or coworkers,” wrote an employee on an employee satisfaction survey that I recently administered for a client. Most of the employees of this organization are very young, with only a few older workers below the executive level. This comment surprised both me and my client, but I recognized it as a symptom of the generational shift change taking place in the United States. Joanne Kaufman, writing for the New York Times, reports on a 2014 Harris Interactive survey conducted on behalf of CareerBuilder, a job recruitment website, which found that 38 percent of American workers now have a younger boss. Many baby boomers are choosing to stay in the workforce longer, and as large cohorts of millennials and gen Xers—highly valued digitial natives—move into leadership positions, Kaufman notes that “the odds are increasing that older workers will be answering to managers young enough to be their children.” Here are some tips for how to deal with what can be a challenging but valuable relationship in the workplace across generations:

  • Older workers need to recognize that younger bosses have valuable experience that is different than theirs because of technology and other experiences.
  • Younger bosses need to value the experience and reliability that older workers bring.
  • Older workers need to check their parental reflexes to offer advice if it has not been asked for.
  • Older workers need to reign in their reflex to talk about the past in a way that can sound patronizing to younger bosses.
  • Younger bosses need to appreciate both the work ethic and the absence of petty drama that most older workers bring to the workplace.
The generational divide is just another diversity issue, and we can all learn to value each other. As with any relationship, it takes two to tango. What has worked for you?   Photo courtesy of WOCinTech Chat. CC by 2.0]]>

Taking a Stand for Women on Boards: The Fearless Girl and the Bull

Could a bold and creative act by the Boston-based State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) finally bring gender equity to corporate boards in the United States? When senior female executives at SSGA decided to commission the statue “The Fearless Girl,” their goal was to bring visibility to the lack of women on boards. By placing the statue in front of New York City’s iconic Bull of Wall Street in during the middle of the night prior to International Women’s Day on March 9, 2017, they hoped to spotlight this issue. Rachael Levy, writing for Business Insider, explains that the statue is part of a new campaign by SSGA to pressure companies to add more women to their boards. Levy reports that—as the third largest asset manager in the world handling $2.5 trillion in funds—SSGA wields a lot of clout and has vowed to vote against boards of companies “that fail to take steps to increase the number of women.” The SSGA executives note that, despite much industry discussion about this issue for many years, little has changed. Why does gender diversity matter? They add that gender diversity improves company performance, and gender diversity increases shareholder value. In other words, gender diversity is good for business. Associated Press reporter  Stan Choe writes that while woman have been gaining board seats, the progress is very slow. Women in the United States held 15 percent of board seats in 2015, up from 14 percent in 2014. Choe notes that, at this rate, it will take until 2055 to gain parity. He also notes that many companies have no women at all on their boards, and only 4 percent of CEOs are women. Other countries have a better record, with women holding 24 percent of board seats in Europe because of government pressure and targets. Shirley Leung of the Boston Globe notes that the placement of the Fearless Girl statue raises some important questions:

  • Why haven’t women been on equal footing?
  • Why shouldn’t they be?
  • Why does the Wall Street Bull, a decidedly masculine symbol, represent America’s economic strength?
Leung explains that for the SSGA executives, who commissioned the statue from artist Kristen Visbol, the little girl represents hope for the future and is a symbol of change. The plaque at her feet reads, “Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference.” I love this symbol of fearlessness. What are your thoughts and reactions?   Photo by vivalapenler. istock standard license]]>

Women and Minorities in Law Firms: The Glacial Pace of Change

Women have enrolled in law school in equal numbers with men in the United States for the last twenty years, and minority enrollment has also steadily increased during this period. Recent studies, compiled into a series of articles by New York Times reporter Elizabeth Olson show both good news and bad news about the current status of women and minorities in law firms. Olson reports good news based on a study by the National Association for Law Placement (NALP). This study shows that women and minorities made small gains in 2016:

  • Women made up 22.13 percent of partners, up from 21.46 percent in 2015.
  • Minorities made up 8.05 percent of partners, up from 7.52 percent the previous year. Of these, 1.81 percent of partners were African Americans.
  • As associates, women held 45 percent of the positions, a slight decrease from 2009 levels. Minorities made up 22.72 percent of associates, up from 19.67 percent in 2009. African Americans made up 4.11 percent of associates, which is below their 2009 level.
  • Disabled lawyers are scarce.
  • Minorities are represented at higher levels among summer associates but are not hired into permanent jobs.
James G. Leipold, executive director of the NALP, notes that these averages mask big discrepancies by law firm size and geography, and these small gains reflect an “incredibly slow pace of change [that] continues to be discouraging.” Why is progress so slow? Research on women lawyers probably holds answers for minority lawyers as well. Olson reports on a study showing that female law students are clustered in law schools with lower rankings. Because jobs with higher wages and long-term job security go to graduates of highly ranked, prestigious law schools, Professor Deborah J. Merritt of Moritz College of Law asserts that “women start at a disadvantage.” Olson also says women are “underrepresented in the higher echelons of law, including the ranks of judges, corporate counsel, law school deans and professors.” The access to these highly ranked law schools is not a level playing field, either.
  • Fewer female college graduates tend to apply to top-ranked law schools, and, when they do, they are less likely to be accepted. Admissions processes at law schools remain murky and lack transparency.
  • Fewer women are enrolled in law schools that claim to place 85 percent of graduates in “gold standard” jobs (full time and long-term).
As noted earlier, the numbers of women and minorities promoted to partner remain low. Olson reports on another study showing that even when women do make partner at large law firms, there is a pay gap of 44 percent between male and female partners. While there are a variety of possibilities for why this discrepancy exists, two seem most likely:
  • There is an “old boys’ network” at play because of connections made at prestigious law schools that result in the hiring firm landing more deals for large accounts.
  • Men are better at receiving credit for originating big cases that impact annual compensation.
In fact, though, many female partners feel that those credits are awarded arbitrarily, often behind closed doors by all-male management committees, and do not accurately represent women’s contributions. Olson reports on three discrimination lawsuits against three different law firms by three different female partners with such claims. In these cases, the female partners complain of pay cuts, demotions, and terminations, even though they were top earners in their firms. I suggest we watch for the resolution of these gender-bias cases for Kerrie L. Campbell, Traci M. Ribeiro, and Kamee Verdrager. Perhaps these lawsuits will force law firms to change their culture to become more transparent and equitable. Unfortunately, too often it takes a lawsuit to bring about change.     Image courtesy of Rep. Nancy PelosiCC by 2.0.]]>