Good morning, Broadsheet readers! WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is seeking a second term, a BNP manager is accused of cutting women's bonuses to give to men, and Lean In's 10th annual Women in the Workplace study is here. Have a wonderful Tuesday!
- Broken rung. For all the progress women have made in the workplace, the U.S. is still far, far from reaching parity—about half a century away, in fact, according to the new Women in the Workplace report from Sheryl Sandberg’s LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company, released today. The 10th anniversary of the report analyzed data from the past decade to get a sense of what is truly changing in workplace culture—and what isn’t.
The report is a fascinating look at how diversity efforts have stalled at many companies. Women still report being talked over, having their judgment questioned, and getting less support from their managers. Women of color, in particular, report that they are still getting fewer opportunities.
But all of that underscores one of the biggest takeaways from the survey, Sandberg tells me: just how fragile the corporate pipeline is. Too few women—particularly women of color—are making it into management. For every 100 men promoted to manager, just 81 women made the same leap. For Black women, the number falls to 54.
"The first promotion to manager is so critical," says Sandberg, the former Meta COO. "We really need to pay attention there."
That "broken rung" on the corporate ladder is a big deal, adds Rachel Thomas, LeanIn.org cofounder and CEO, because it limits what women can do for the rest of their careers. And though women have made gains higher up in organizations, they come with an asterisk. The share of women in VP and SVP roles is increasing, but not because more women are being elevated; rather, it’s because companies are eliminating other roles held mainly by men.
And at the C-Suite level, many of the gains are coming from newly created "staff" roles like chief human resources officer, not necessarily from more women assuming operating roles that are launching pads for future CEOs. Sandberg and Thomas say that's an unsustainable way to increase diversity and equality going forward. (And it's not the first time companies have simply added seats to increase diversity.)
"You can't just keep adding roles and putting women in them," says Thomas. "The fragility of that progress is really concerning."
Still, there’s plenty to celebrate in the report, Sandberg and Thomas say, including that women have made gains at every level of the corporate pipeline over the past 10 years, particularly in senior leadership. In fact, 29% of C-Suite leaders are women, according to this year’s report, compared to 17% in 2015. Thomas says the organization has long considered hitting the 30% mark a "tipping point" when women typically stop feeling the negative effects of being the “only” one in a room, based on research of similar findings. Sandberg and Thomas hope it means better things in the future.
"The more women in corporate America who look up and see women in the C-Suite, the more likely they are to try for themselves," says Thomas.
The results of the survey highlight how companies have to take real action via mentoring and promoting women for workplaces to near or someday reach parity. In 2020, companies made commitments to diversity and inclusion initiatives, and those paid off. But since then, the share of companies pledging gender and racial diversity has declined, and with it, some of women's workplace gains.
"Commitment to DEI programs really matters," says Sandberg. "We know that companies and teams that are more inclusive and take advantage of the full workforce perform better. Making sure that we continue to remind ourselves of that is really important."
Alicia Adamczyk
alicia.adamczyk@fortune.com
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