🔒Editorial: Working families need business support

In a year with a lot of bad news, we have some good to share. The percent of women in leadership positions at 75 prominent Central Massachusetts business organizations hit its highest level in the four years WBJ has done its Boardroom Gap investigation. The number even ticked up three percentage points in the last year, which is impressive given how little turnover there tends to be in leadership positions.

While the ultimate goal to attain equity may be when the number nears 50/50, having 37% of these top jobs held by women shows an increasing number of organizations and leaders recognize the importance of having diverse voices and backgrounds in decision-making positions. A number of studies have shown companies with gender and ethnically diverse leadership tend to perform better, such as the 2017 McKinsey & Co. report saying companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on corporate teams are 21% more likely to outperform on profitability and 27% more likely to have better value creation.

Will this trend continue? It looks murky. On top of all the other short- and long-term problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, turnover in the workforce has disproportionately affected women, who are more likely to work in industries heavily impacted by the crisis; and they are more likely than men to leave their jobs to take care of their increased family needs. While the job losses will likely have less impact on those top achieving women who hold C-suite positions, or even the women just below them in the senior ranks, the pandemic may well cause a disruption in the talent pipeline. An impact in the pipeline of capable younger women in the workforce can serve to interrupt the progress we’ve seen.

There is time to help rectify this problem, although it will take a cultural shift in business and government support for families, particularly working mothers. Massachusetts this year launched its new paid family medical leave law, designed to provide paid time off for professionals to take care of newborn children or sick family members. Although the full impact of the legislation is at least a year away as the funding pool grows, the expectation is this law will help keep more women from exiting the workforce and interrupting their ascent up the career ladder.

Another step to help women stay in the career track would be better child care support. Old Sturbridge Village, in a move to hold onto its specially trained staff during the pandemic, set up a child care center where employees’ children could do their virtual schooling. Not every company can take this big a step, but other measures and supports can help workers not have to choose between child care and their jobs. Businesses can offer subsidies for child care, be more flexible on their workers’ schedules, offer back-up emergency child care assistance for snow days or sick days, and/or have flexible spending accounts (FSAs) through their healthcare provider, which parents can spend on child care. None of this will come cheap, and we’re a long way off from the near full employment we were experiencing in early 2020. But measures supporting women who desire to stay in their careers succeed will go a long way toward better diversity in business leadership.