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Getting Equality with Men: Adapt Your Business to Women, with Sallie Krawcheck, CEO and Co-Founder, Ellevest, and Author, Own It: The Power of Women at Work
Harness a massive economic force
It’s really important for businesses to really adapt to women for a couple of key and really important reasons. Women have got a ton of money. Women direct 80% of consumer spending these days and are becoming much more knowledgeable about where to spend it. Women have got $5 trillion of investable assets. They control that. They jointly control, with their spouses or partners, another 6. Women will inherit 70% of the $40 trillion of wealth transfer that’s going to occur over the next handful of decades. And women are just more than half the workforce. So women are this massive economic force. Do we have as much money as the guys do? Not yet. We’re working on that. But there’s a massive economic force.
It couldn’t particularly mobilize itself in the past. You know, it’s just what, we’re going to all spontaneously rise up? Well, in the day of social media and communication, we have much more the ability to get information and share information. And we’re beginning to see technology step in, where, you can go to the grocery store, use your phone with some apps, and determine what the gender makeup is of the company whose product you’re about to buy as an employee.
Back in the day, I didn’t know how much money I was supposed to make. And if I was going to a new company, I had no way of figuring out anything about the culture except for maybe a few people who I could speak to there. Well, in this day and age, not only do you know how much you’re supposed to make so you can negotiate better, but as you think about going to a company, you can go to InHerSights that crowdsources culture information from women–tens of thousands of women–on individual companies–or Fairygodboss, where you can compare parental-leave policies.
So we’ve got this power. The information is flowing now, such that the power is coming to women. And so why should companies sort of bend themselves to women? Because it’s going to be smart.
And the other thing I’d say on the flip side of it, is that if you don’t, you’re going to lose. And look at my old industry, the investing industry–great job for men, so it’s done very well. But look at all those assets that women have, where they are holding back from investing. And it’s costing the industry a fortune they don’t understand. In fact, it’s so bad that the industry calls women a niche market–$5 trillion of investable assets is a niche market. So you’re going to lose either way going forward in a way that just didn’t happen a few years ago.
Make your company more attractive
Things like flexible work are viewed as important for attracting women, and millennials, and are. That being said, that’s not the most important thing. If you have one thing you can do to attract both of those important groups, and certainly women, it is to express what the impact is that your company is making on the world around you and the impact that these individuals can have.
For women, in looking to switch jobs, the number one factor is meaning and purpose. Money is number four. Not that women want to make less money. They want to make the same money, but the first thing they look at is meaning and purpose. The second thing they look at and the third thing they look at are how much am I going to learn, and the people that I work with. So it really is more of a macro issue.
Now let’s go back to my old industry–to Wall Street and to investing. Think about, what meaning and purpose have they expressed? Not much. If you were to ask most women–most people–about that meaning and purpose on Wall Street, it’s about making money, well with trading assets, trading stocks, whatever. Actually, vast swaths of the business are helping American families invest their money to live better lives. That’s amazing meaning and purpose. But the industry has not been able to articulate it in a way that has attracted women.
So that’s the biggie. Once you go past that, what women are looking for is a workplace that conforms to them, not that forces us to confirm to it. I mean, seriously, the 9:00 to 5:00 face-time work environment–like, you got to be kidding me. You got to be kidding me. I mean, who does that work well for overall? But the ability to work–when you’re a productive, to work in a flexible fashion is increasingly important to everybody rather than we’ve always done it this way. Let’s keep doing it this way.