A number of new workforce trends have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our team at SHAMBAUGH Leadership has been working closely with our corporate clients on several recommendations for women talent post-COVID based on these trends. My next two blog posts will cover our top recommendations.
Improve Flexibility Benefits
Catalyst reported in August that “The pandemic exposed and exacerbated women’s time spent on unpaid household and caregiving,” noting that “Globally, women spent three times as many hours on unpaid childcare last year than men—an average of 173 additional hours versus 59.” Despite these inequities, many companies provide insufficient employee support around childcare and caregiving.
SHAMBAUGH’s experience with the women we coach has validated Catalyst’s finding: that many women (41 percent) believe they must keep their childcare struggles a secret from their employer, fearing that this would affect their manager’s view of their ability to do their job at a high level.
Because the U.S. does not offer sufficient childcare support for working families, it’s vital that companies hoping to retain top women talent offer flexibility in when and how work gets done. Flexible work might include remote work options or flexible hours—but it’s critical that employers ensure that women who leverage flexibility do not have any disadvantage in opportunities for visibility and promotion.
Take Steps to Decrease the Pay Gap
A Pew Research Center analysis found that women earned 84% of what men earned in 2020, based on median hourly earnings of full- and part-time workers. This gender pay gap is only widening and feeding into additional areas likegender discrimination that impact the wage discrepancy.
According to McKinsey & Co, only 85 women have been promoted to manager for every 100 men who were promoted, and only 58 Black women and 71 Latinas were promoted. As Catalyst reported, “Covid-19 exacerbated these inequities as a disproportionate number of women, particularly women of color, lost wages due to unemployment or reduced work hours.”
Employers can take a number of steps to decrease the pay gap within their individual organization. Conducting a pay equity analysis can help reveal inequities between the salaries of men and women in the same role. Supporting pay transparency can ensure fairness in compensation across the organization. HR and managers can also partner to evaluate internal recruitment, promotion, and talent development systems for signs of gender bias. Finally, leaders can offer training and coaching opportunities for women to know their value, and get comfortable asking for what they want and need.
Offer Development Opportunities to Raise Women’s Confidence
Another observation that SHAMBAUGH Leadership has made during the pandemic is that women’s confidence in many cases has decreased. This further exacerbates the overall confidence problem our team has noticed, in which many women undervalue their worth. Women may miss out on growth opportunities by failing to speak up, ask for support, or take on new opportunities.
We coach leadership teams to provide more opportunities for women’s self-evaluation—as well as constructive external feedback—to increase their awareness of their strengths and build on these. Based on this knowledge, companies can create strength assignments that will bolster women’s confidence and enhance their visibility.
Coaching and development is another effective way to encourage women to examine their self-limiting narratives, identify their strengths, and strategically incorporate these within their job and organization. By creating an objective and measurable development plan that is integrated within the broader leadership development process and aligned with organizational objectives, companies can give women talent the confidence boost that can help them achieve their true potential and achieve maximum impact and results.
In my next post, I’ll share additional recommendations for women talent post-COVID on role models, lack of sponsorship, unconscious bias, proactively developing and retaining women talent, and SHAMBAUGH’s “Actions United” approach for inclusion.
Contact me at info@shambaughleadership.com or link to SHAMBAUGH’s offerings to learn more about SHAMBAUGH’s Coaching and Development Programs for Women, Accelerating Gender Equity, and Inclusive culture, I’d be happy to speak at your company on how women can champion their life/career and lean into their highest leadership.
Rebecca Shambaugh is President of SHAMBAUGH Leadership, and Founder of Women in Leadership and Learning. Rebecca is a contributing writer to Harvard Business Review, the HuffPost, and a TEDx speaker. Rebecca has been featured on CNBC, Forbes, Training Magazine, and US News and World Report. She is author of the best-selling books It’s Not a Glass Ceiling, It’s a Sticky Floor and Make Room for Her: Why Companies Need an Integrated Leadership Model to Achieve Extraordinary Results.