In last month’s post, I shared insights from SHAMBAUGH Leadership on three new workforce trends that have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. These revolve around improving flexibility benefits, taking steps to decrease the pay gap, and offering development opportunities to raise women’s confidence. Read on for four additional trends that we’ve identified for women talent post-COVID:
Counteract the Exodus of Women Role Models
Much has been written about how the pandemic caused decades of incremental progress toward gender equity to roll backwards, as women left the workforce in droves. With even fewer women in leadership positions due to this situation, those with high potential at lower levels of an organization have ended up without senior-level role models.
SHAMBAUGH’s research has shown that essentially, “seeing is believing.” You can’t be what you can’t see, yet SHAMBAUGH’s Women in Leadership and Learning (WILL) Program and Executive Coaching program for women indicates that almost two-thirds of women reported a lack of senior or successful women roles models, which turned out to be a significant obstacle to their career advancement. With this in mind, organizations should be intentional about appointing highly qualified women to the executive team, corporate board, C-suite, and/or CEO position.
Overcome Lack of Sponsorship
Many women post-COVID are finding themselves challenged with getting their careers back on track and are struggling to advance to managerial roles, let alone rise to the C-suite. I speak to a number of women, and we reinforce in SHAMBAUGH’s WILL program the importance of building “relationship currency” which means taking the time to develop and tap into supportive and influential relationships. The other issue for women is that they lack access to sponsors within their organizations. While sponsorship is critical for women across all diversity lines, women of color have even greater needs for sponsorship. Research has shown, for example, that less than a quarter of Black women feel they have the sponsorship they need to advance their company’s leadership level. SHAMBAUGH’s research had additionally found that Black women are also less likely to be included in important conversations at work, thus giving them fewer chances to be noticed by leadership.
As more women are opting to work remotely, sponsors are becoming even more critical to ensure that women are not overlooked for advancement opportunities. If they have neglected to do so to date, organizations should now prioritize engaging more successful senior women leaders and executives as sponsors and advocates for highly qualified women talent. Here are some immediate steps to take:
- Provide targeted training for women across the organization to not only understand the value of sponsorship, but also how to take practical steps to cultivate and tap into it.
- Don’t assume that your leadership team is prepared to take on sponsorship without training. Onboard and educate senior leadership and executives on what it means to be a sponsor, including key behaviors and attributes required to be an effective sponsor.
- Proactively ensure that your company offers access to potential sponsors and provides equitable practices for women— including women of color—to fuel their career success with individual career plans that are prioritized and put into action plans.
Be Proactive and Prescriptive in Developing and Retaining Your Women Talent
The trends above should be based around providing targeted coaching and development programs and solutions that support important competencies and attributes for women toadvance. Invest early on in the pipeline by following what SHAMBAUGH refers to as an “Actions United Approach” for inclusion and gender equity.
In addition to ensuring that women have senior-level women role models and that women are made visible through sponsorship, mentoring, and exposure to senior leaders, this approach should include the following:
- Have objective criteria for leadership development to ensure equal opportunity for both genders.
- Ensure talented women have access to high-profile assignments.
- Since remote collaboration has been shown to expand and engage the larger talent pool and foster greater flexibility, leadership should create greater remote collaboration that reinforces new gender-balanced practices and behaviors to ensure “all” voices, talents, and strengths are visible and valued.
- Engage men in the organization as allies to help build a gender-integrated organization. Be sure to provide men with the right training and tools to help women in their careers, while providing intentional support for women to reach the senior—executive level.
Address Unconscious Bias
While addressing bias is part of the Actions United Approach as well, I wanted to call it out separately. SHAMBAUGH coaches leadership teams to take the following steps to raise awareness and create institutional change around unconscious bias:
- Provide targeted training on inclusive leadership behaviors and how to mitigate unproductive bias.
- Reinforce and safeguard psychological safety for women and all employees at work.
- Hold leaders accountable for ensuring an inclusive workplace by tracking and measuring identified markers for inclusion.
- Reinforce an empathetic work culture that supports “people first,” effective listening, humility, and above all, the well-being of all employees.
Women’s ability to lead is often undermined by gender stereotypes and unconscious bias, which continues to be a roadblock for diversity and gender equity, keeping women talent from feeling fully valued and holding them back from reaching their career goals. By addressing these issues at the leadership level, organizations can help everyone in their organizations move more successfully into the post-COVID workplace environment.
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, Inclusive Culture, and Fundamentals of Leadership in a Post Covid Work Environment. 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.