The 2010 Culture Shift In the Workplace

Look for a healthy increase in women leaders and a more woman-friendly work culture in the new decade!

But I’m under no Pollyanna illusions. Equity at work still eludes women. The pay gap holds steady about 80 cents per every dollar a man makes, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Ten percent of the top 500 public companies have zero female corporate officers; even more have not a single woman on their board.

Progress has been nearly stagnant in other key leadership roles. And yet the tide is turning. There’s no holding women back: in 2010, for the first time ever, women may outnumber men at work. Simultaneously, women are proving their worth at the highest levels of business – not just in terms of smart work styles – but when it comes to the bottom line. The old argument – that there aren’t enough women with P&L and managerial experience just doesn’t hold up anymore. Women have had the chance to prove they can do the job and they now have the experience and results to back that up.

Consider this: According to USA Today calculations, in 2009 stocks of the 13 Fortune 500 companies that had women CEOs were up an average of 50%, compared to a 25% increase for the S&P 500. No surprise there. At Davos a year ago, Ernst & Young shared numerous studies in their white paper showing that companies with more women in key executive roles enjoy higher profits.

Someone is listening. Women are moving into leadership roles previously off limits. 2010 kicks off with 15 female CEOs in the top 500, two more than we had this time last year. Ursula Burns’ summer promotion to CEO of Xerox, marked the first time an African American woman has held the top job. Also historic, the recent presidential election brought two women, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, into mainstream presidential politics.

With more of them in the room, women leaders are getting gutsier and as well as shifting culture. PINK’s profile of Penny McIntyre, Newell Rubbermaid’s one female corporate officer now discourages in-meeting small talk that excludes others in the room. “During ‘warm-up’ conversations before big meetings, all the guys will discuss some big game… It’s not inclusive,” McIntyre told PINK. Clear about the bosses position, this doesn’t happen much anymore.

Plus, under greater shareholder scrutiny, companies are feeling more pressure to embrace diversity and inclusion. After PINK’s story naming names of the 50 biggest companies with no women corporate officers, the head of corporate communications for Ryder System Inc., one of the companies on our hit list, called insistent that the seven decade-old trucking company had moved women into these key job positions. However, when we explained that our source, Catalyst, defines a “corporate officer” as a company’s top most corporate management team – usually the CEO and direct reports, division heads, etc. she responded, “Oh. No, we don’t have that. But this is a priority.” And so it is.

Big business is realizing that they can’t underestimate the value of women leaders without suffering the consequences. Leadership will need to be more reflective of the changing work pool as well as consumers, 85 percent of which are women.

By Cynthia Good