Gender Equity Research Reduces Back-to-Work Stigma

In her previous corporate job, Sara was responsible for building systems to recruit and retain women and minorities. What she discovered was that the well intentioned efforts of most companies were actually what she now calls the Trifecta of Equality Doom – 1) recruit women, 2) ask them to lean in and 3) give everyone diversity training. Everyone seemed to be doing the same thing even though it wasn't producing results.

With a background in systems, she was frustrated that this business critical problem wasn’t being measured, tracked, and improved with data like every other business problem. She wondered why there wasn’t a certification that would simply tell people that a particular business was gender equity certified. Why didn’t that exist? Who should build it?  

It turns out she and her network of colleagues were the perfect ones to tackle this problem and Gender Equity Now was born. Two and a half years later, they've launched the first standardized certification for gender equity – something along the lines of LEED or EnergyStar in other industries – and  they have their first certified companies.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

Why gender equity needs to be treated like any other business critical problem Examples of unintentional, but implicit bias When in a career the gender pay gap actually compounds Why pay decisions shouldn’t be based on an employee’s self-evaluation How to shift the onus of this problem from the employee to the company How gender equity financially benefits companies Why the percentage of highly educated women in the workforce is decreasing (research shows that only 6% left for family reasons) How GEN is helping companies reduce the stigma around women returning to work How the “caretaker” identity subconsciously assigned to women at work impacts their work and potential for promotion The best way for women to currently find gender equity information on a particular company 3 good questions you can ask about networking, mentorship, and success stories during the interview process that won’t hurt your chances of getting the job How new state laws banning salary questions have the potential to improve gender pay gap The importance of paid leave and minimum wage policies on this issue

TEDx talk: Improving gender parity through corporate accountability