data from womenintheworkplace.com
The Broken Rung
Each year, we eagerly anticipate the release of the annual Women in the Workplace study conducted by LeanIn.org and McKinsey and Company. This year, the report’s fifth year, was no different. There are often new themes and new lenses on the topics of representation, bias, and how to mitigate unequal treatment in the workplace. Our big takeaway this year is a concept coined The Broken Rung.
Rather than a focus on the glass ceiling and the challenge for women to rise to senior leadership positions, the broken rung represents “the biggest obstacle women face on the path to senior leadership”—the initial move from entry-level to manager. “For every 100 men promoted and hired to manager, only 72 women are promoted and hired. This broken rung results in more women getting stuck at the entry level and fewer women becoming managers. Not surprisingly, men end up holding 62 percent of manager-level positions, while women hold just 38 percent.”
The Broken Rung comes with a long list of causes and effects—I highly recommend that you read the full report to better understand the full context of both. However, when it comes to the work we do, I latched on to a very specific cause: “Companies are less likely to provide unconscious bias training for employees who participate in entry-level performance reviews than senior-level reviews, but mitigating bias at this stage is particularly important. Candidates tend to have shorter track records early in their careers, and evaluators may make unfair, gendered assumptions about their future potential.”
data from womenintheworkplace.com
My Take
In reading that “cause” above—the fact that companies don’t provide as much training to mid-level managers who oversee entry-level employees—I thought: of course. How many companies have we worked with that have decided to take a top-down approach, beginning with training for their senior leaders before working their way down? It seems to make sense… one of the critical aspects of a successful diversity and inclusion initiatives within an organization is buy-in from senior leaders. It’s a great place to start, but it can’t be where the focus stops.
We also often find that when we are brought in to deliver leadership workshops, there is often a focus on developing mid-level and senior-level women, but few programs truly dedicated to entry-level women with the ambition of moving up to managerial roles. Another moment of reflection for me—how can we be better about encouraging a wide range of experience levels within the programs we offer?
The most encouraging aspect of the 2019 Women in the Workplace report for me is the rising level of companies committed to gender diversity—up to 87% in 2019 over just 56% in 2012 and 74% in 2015. Organizations are moving in the right direction and continue to need guidance on where and how to focus their efforts.
data from womenintheworkplace.com
The Challenge: Mend the Broken Rung
Pages 16-17 of the report serve as a high-level cheat sheet for how to fix the broken rung and the drop off in gender representation in the pipeline:
Set a goal for getting more women into first-level management
Require diverse slates for hiring and promotions
Put evaluators through unconscious bias training
Establish clear evaluation criteria
Put more women in line for the step up to manager
Take time to identify which of these your company is already doing, and where they may be focusing disproportionately on the higher levels of the pipeline for training and development. Raise it, flag it, and use this report as your talking points.
Not sure where you’re organization should begin, reach out to discuss our gender inclusion trainings and our newly released Changing Bias Behaviors program for mid-level managers, specifically designed for mid-level managers to address the broken rung.