Promoting Women Is Crucial
September 27 2016 - 11:18PM
Dow Jones News
By Lauren Weber and Rachel Louise Ensign
Even where a commitment to gender parity exists, companies must
be more proactive to keep women on strong career paths from the
lowest to the highest organizational levels, some of the top
business leaders in the U.S. said Tuesday.
"We have to get the pipeline going right at the very beginning,"
Mary Barra, the chief executive of General Motors Co., said at an
event in New York hosted by The Wall Street Journal about improving
the representation of women in corporate America.
Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook Inc. and
one of Silicon Valley's most prominent female executives, noted
that greater inclusion offers a dividend for everyone: "Study after
study shows us, when you use the full talents of the population,
you get better results. This has very big repercussions for
economic growth. If we want our companies to outperform and we want
economic growth, greater representation from women is the
answer."
In a panel discussion, Ms. Barra and James Dimon, the chief
executive of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., talked about the need to
identify talented women and find good roles for them while also
holding male leaders accountable for picking the best people for
jobs, from the strongest possible slate of candidates.
Mr. Dimon said hiring more women provides a business advantage.
"If I pick my team from everybody and you pick your team from
middle-aged white men, I guarantee I'll pick a better team," he
said.
He said that the bank's female chief financial officer was the
top choice of most of those involved in the decision. He also said
he often calls women who leave the bank to figure out why they are
departing.
New data from LeanIn.Org, which was founded by Ms. Sandberg, and
McKinsey & Co. found that despite modest progress, women are
underrepresented at every management level in companies, and the
disparity begins early on. While men and women comprise almost
equal shares of entry-level workers, men are 30% more likely than
female counterparts to be promoted from that stage into a
managerial role.
Women account for 19% of C-suite executives, up from 17% last
year, according to the study, which is based on responses from 132
companies and 34,000 employees.
The executives said companies must work with employees -- men
and women -- who are juggling many priorities, both at work and at
home. Ms. Barra talked about turning down a promotion early in her
career because it required a relocation and she didn't want to move
away from her elderly parents at that time. "Sometimes you have to
weigh what's right for you at that time," and workers need to be
honest with themselves and their leaders about what they want at
various moments in their lives. About a year later, she was offered
another opportunity to manage a plant, a key role that prepared her
for her job at the helm of GM.
When it comes to improving on the status quo, "it's a lot of
little things," Dominic Barton, global managing partner of McKinsey
said at the event. "There's no silver bullet. It's about executing
it everywhere in the organization and, where it's not happening,
intervening."
Write to Lauren Weber at lauren.weber@wsj.com and Rachel Louise
Ensign at rachel.ensign@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 27, 2016 23:03 ET (03:03 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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