The headline we need to focus on: 865,000 women just left the workforce.
Women are leaving the workplace in droves.
Recent articles such as Even The Most Successful Women Pay A Big Price In Pandemic and Sheryl Sandberg: Senior-level women are leaving the workforce. If businesses don’t act, we’ll lose our best leaders are drawing attention to the Labor Department’s report in September that 865,000 women left the workforce — four times the number of men who did. The 2020 Women in the Workplace report shows that one in four women, including corporate America’s senior-most leaders, are now considering downshifting their jobs or leaving the workforce.
Not only does stepping off the career ladder, even temporarily, put promotions, career advancement and long-term earnings potential in jeopardy, but it also hurts our companies and deprives them of the business benefits they experience when they have more women in leadership positions and on boards. Because of that, we must redouble our efforts to recruit, retain and advance women and create more advocates, particularly men. Business Resource Groups are in a strategic position now to help their organizations do this important work and stop the reversal of 20 years of progress in women’s leadership advancement.
What your BRG needs to do IMMEDIATELY!
Women’s BRGs should be laser-focused now on creating gender advocates in their companies. This means inviting, engaging and including men in the work of advancing women. As men still hold 80 percent of the senior leadership positions in corporations now (and that percentage may tilt even further with the current exit of senior women), they must be part of any effective solution. Plus we need more women to commit their efforts to drive this conversation.
What do Business Resource Groups need to do immediately? They need to adjust their plans. They must have a greater sense of urgency to this work. Now is the time of year when most BRGs are doing their planning process. It is time for a new planning process designed to drive exponential resources and garner real money and commitment to this work. How will your 2021 BRG plan help ebb the tide, for 800,000 women nationally and an unknown number of women at your company?
To assist BRGs, I am providing two free tools, one to drive greater gender advocacy and the second to help you write an exponential 2021 Business Plan. Simply click on Creating Gender Advocates to access the free tools and learn more about the virtual series.
We must act now to prevent losing decades of progress that companies have made in advancing women.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
