Women’s resource groups at work are nice in theory, but most of them don’t seem to be getting much done in terms of helping women gain equal footing at work — if they were, we’d have seen more progress by now.
So how can these groups go beyond education and make real, meaningful change? Here are Sallie’s thoughts.
Sallie’s answer:
By coming together, engaging with the leadership team, and effecting changes that are good for the people of the company — and therefore for the company.
For example, a company might have a subpar parental leave policy. The research tells us that this would result in more turnover from new parents and company expenses beyond what they are probably measuring as “effective” — because they have to find and train people to replace those folks.
So you can perhaps make meaningful change by coming together — with the research, with the management team — to talk about how you can have a more generous (I would say more fair) family leave policy, for primary and non-primary caregivers. That could be a way to not only make your work environment better, more family-friendly, and more people-friendly, but also to improve the results of the company.
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