Women in the Workplace: Fixing the Rungs to get to the Ceiling

For decades, there have been thousands of discussions about breaking the glass ceiling. The term was originally used in 1978 by Marilyn Loden. She used it when speaking on a panel at the 1978 Women’s Exposition in New York. Decades later some progress has been made, but not enough.   

In 1978, there were no female Fortune 500 CEOs. In 2024, female CEOs made up 10.4% of the list. Of those, only one is Black. The first Black woman to become a Fortune 500 CEO was Ursula M. Burns. She served as Xerox’s CEO from 2009 to 2016. The first female CEO in the Fortune 500 was the legendary Katharine Graham who in 1972 took on the leadership role at The Washington Post. The first Latina woman to be a Fortune 500 CEO was Geisha Williams, who was in the top leadership positions at Pacific Gas and Electric Company in 2017.

After decades of talk about women in the workplace and equal access to the leadership pipeline, it’s clear that progress has been very slow. What needs more focus is the issue around the broken rung in many women’s careers.  

Getting working women started right in their careers is something that HR can be involved in. Younger working women tend not to utilize their benefits at the same level as their male counterparts. Helping female new hires get more involved in understanding how to use their benefits, particularly around issues like stress and anxiety, and starting to contribute to a  401(k) from year one can make a big difference.

For those working women in their late 20s, having more programming on not just fertility benefits, but also the real cost of caregiving breaks can be helpful. This can help them better plan for the potential financial shortfall. It is also a great time to discuss some of the risks of having children after 35. Of course, everyone should make their own decision about when they want to start a family, but having more comprehensive information can help them make better choices for themselves.  

Education that can potentially help all women at every stage of their careers should include not just age-appropriate health tests, but information on how to advocate for themselves in a medical setting.  Chronic pain affects a higher proportion of women than men; however, women are less likely to receive treatment. Some of this is still because of gender bias, that a woman may be exaggerating her pain level. We now know that women potentially may have different symptoms than men when having a heart attack. But there is not enough research on other diseases to know about some of these differences. Women should know how to be health advocates for themselves.

There are now more credible resources to support peri-menopausal and menopausal women. If you don’t have a menopause benefit in place, this is another area where education can be helpful.  
It’s also important to recognize that hours of unpaid work at home, including caregiving for children and aging adults, can directly impact your employees’ physical and mental health. It is estimated that when your employee becomes a caregiving decision-maker for an adult or aging adult, they will need to come up with another 24+ hours every week. With no support, those additional care hours can impact their productivity and may increase the likelihood they will come in late or leave early. It can also lead to them having to leave the company.

So much of whether or not a woman can move up the leadership pipeline can be impacted by her own level of health and well-being. There is an opportunity to help women at every stage of their careers do a better job of protecting their physical, mental, and financial health and well-being.  The more they do that, the more likely it is that they can develop into leadership positions, not have a career “broken rung,” and help your organization stay competitive.