Facing the Gender Gap in the Workplace

The current gender gap in the workplace

According to the latest McKinsey study on women in the workplace, corporate America has made some progress in improving women’s representation:

• In 2023, women comprised 28 percent of C-suite executive roles — up from 22 percent in 2018 and 17 percent in 2015. 
• In 2023, for every 100 men promoted, 87 women were promoted — up from 86 in the previous study.  

Still, there is much progress to be made. Women remain underrepresented, particularly in middle-management positions, which is a crucial pipeline to advancement:

• In 2023, women comprised 36 percent of senior manager/director positions, up only 2 percentage points from 2018 (when it was 34 percent).
• In 2023, women comprised 40 percent of manager positions, up only 2 percentage points from 2018 (when it was 38 percent).

Women of color face the worst disparities in the workplace:

• Only 6 percent of the women in executive roles are women of color.
• Only 13 percent of women in manager roles are women of color. 
• For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 73 women of color are promoted (compared to 87 women overall and 91 white women). 
• For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 54 are Black women — significantly down from 96 in 2021 — and only 76 are Latinas.  

Furthermore, the data showed that microaggressions specifically and severely impact women in the workplace. Consider the following examples:

• Women are 2 times as likely as men to have others comment on their emotional state. 
• Women are 2.5 times as likely as men to say others comment on their appearance; LGBTQ+ women are 6.5 times more likely to have this experience. 
• Women are 1.5 times as likely as men to experience their judgment being questioned. 
• Women of color are 5.5 times as likely as men to say they’ve been confused with someone else of the same race or ethnicity. 
• Women with disabilities are 3 times as likely as men to be confused for a more junior staff member.

Mandy Price is the co-founder and CEO of Kanarys Inc., a platform that gathers and analyzes cultural and demographic data to help organizations build more inclusive work cultures. At Kanarys, she is a witness to the inequality and lack of action that still surrounds the workplace gender gap. Price said the current gender gap should serve as a wake-up call to business leaders. 

“Although companies have long pronounced commitments to gender diversity, it’s important to remember that only active and intentional actions on the part of employers to enlist women in the workforce, at all levels, will help toward narrowing the gender gap,” Price asserted.

How to create gender equality in the workplace

Beyond legal changes, companies must focus on cultural and organizational changes to reduce gender inequality. It is not enough to hire more women, although that’s a start. Diversity alone doesn’t create a culture of inclusion. Businesses must make an effort to close the gender gap and strive to make their workplaces genuinely inclusive.

Here are seven ways businesses can work toward gender equality in the workplace. 

1. Focus on diversity during your recruitment process.

“It is disconcerting to see that even though the business community is well aware of the benefits of a diverse workforce, such as innovation, employee retention and increased financial returns, there is still a lack of progress in closing the gender gap,” Price noted. 

Gender equality in the workplace starts with your recruitment process. Strive for a diverse and equitable workplace by creating accurate and inclusive job descriptions, sourcing a gender-diverse candidate pipeline, and conducting fair interviews. And because subconscious bias can affect hiring decisions, it’s crucial to take measures to ensure fairness, including the following: 

• Include multiple people in the hiring process.
• Conduct reference checks to understand a candidate’s true value; don’t just rely on how they look on paper. 
• Use diversity hiring tools in your hiring process.

A gender-diverse and inclusive hiring process is essential for all positions; however, it’s critical for managerial and executive positions. According to McKinsey, men hold roughly 60 percent of manager positions, while women hold only 40 percent. 

2. Create fair compensation and promotion procedures.

Create desirable compensation plans for all employees and ensure they’re fair, equitable and transparent. Offer your employees equal pay for equal work, regardless of gender. Fair compensation practices are an obvious way to promote gender equality in your workplace and attract and retain top talent.

Additionally, businesses should focus on promoting qualified women from within. Create a standard set of evaluation and promotion procedures that allow hardworking, talented women to move up the corporate ladder. While promoting women from within can reduce the current gender gap, everyone benefits from transparent evaluation and promotion procedures.

3. Offer flexible and supportive employee benefits.

The McKinsey study found that employee burnout is a significant stressor impacting women in the workplace. Since the pandemic, women have been disproportionately affected by burnout, stress and exhaustion compared to their male counterparts. Additionally, 38 percent of mothers with young children said they would leave their company or decrease their hours if they didn’t have access to workplace flexibility.

Companies can reduce stress by offering comprehensive employee benefits packages and more opportunities for a positive work-life balance, such as better access to child care and greater acceptance of flexible workplace options (remote work, hybrid work and flexible scheduling). This atmosphere can prevent employee burnout among women and allow mothers to play a more active role in the corporate world.

4. Create a diversity and inclusion training program.

Train your employees on what is and isn’t acceptable in the workplace. Have your employees attend a diversity training program customized to your business to address potential biases and prejudices within your organization. These programs can also encourage employees to move from awareness to action in terms of allyship.

5. Hold managers accountable for supporting gender equality.

According to Price, companies must assertively embrace gender diversity and treat it as an integral part of their business strategies. Price suggested tying supervisors’ bonuses to diversity and inclusion objectives.

“It is important for companies to track, measure, and hold managers accountable for diversity and inclusion efforts,” Price advised. “If this important business metric is not tracked, we may never see any improvement.”

6. Build an inclusive company culture.

It’s not enough to hire more women. Companies must create a positive company culture where employees feel a sense of belonging and acceptance. They should focus on improving their workplace cultures to increase inclusion and engagement and improve the employee experience.

Additionally, an inclusive company culture can eliminate the devastating microaggressions so many women are subject to and keep women in the workforce. “Women who commonly encounter microaggressions are more likely to leave the workplace, encounter sexual harassment at work, and have their qualifications challenged,” Price explained.

7. Pay attention to political changes.

Current federal and state laws aim to eliminate the gender gap and provide equal opportunities for men and women. For example, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibits wage disparity based on sex. However, as we get closer to a world with gender equality in the workplace, look out for any potential new legal changes that arise.

How companies benefit from bridging the gender gap

Along with creating gender equality, bridging the gender gap strengthens organizations by helping them spur creativity and innovation, retain valuable talent, improve employee morale, and reduce attrition rates.

• Bridging the gender gap attracts top-tier talent. Employees want to work in an environment where they feel valued and treated fairly. Focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion to bridge the gender gap can be a vital way to attract and retain top talent and reduce employee turnover.
• Bridging the gender gap boosts productivity. A diverse and inclusive workforce fosters greater employee engagement, which, in turn, can increase financial returns and market share. Engaged employees feel more energized and connected to their organization and are often willing to go the extra mile to maximize productivity. High employee engagement is also linked to higher employee retention, saving money on recruitment costs.
• Bridging the gender gap encourages innovative thinking. Providing your employees with an inclusive and equitable space to be creative is ideal for innovation. A diverse workforce brings a unique set of ideas and perspectives to the table, and an inclusive culture that allows those voices equal opportunity to be heard is great for creating new solutions. The key to this is being both diverse and inclusive.

“It is time we all acknowledge that having a diverse and inclusive workforce is good for business,” Price said. “The numbers simply don’t lie.”

How does Equal Pay Day expose the workplace gender gap?

Equal Pay Day represents how far in the year women must work to earn the same amount of money men did in the previous year. Since women typically earn less than men, currently 84 cents on the dollar, they would need to work 42 days longer to earn the same amount. This wage gap is often even greater for women of color.

Equal Pay Day was started in 1966 by the National Committee on Pay Equity as an act of public awareness to demonstrate the wage gap between men and women. Employees are encouraged to wear red on Equal Pay Day to support the movement (it’s typically observed in the second week of March). This color symbolizes how far women are in the red with their salaries.

Bridging the gender gap

Employers can bridge the gender gap in the workplace in countless ways, from fostering a more inclusive company culture to offering more helpful benefits and flexibility.

Supporting women in the business world is integral to increasing productivity and attracting and retaining diverse talent. With intentional action, you can do your part as an employer to address this long-standing gender gap. 

Sammi Caramela contributed to this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.