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Meet America’s Best Employers For Women 2021

When Lindsay Zoeller found out she was pregnant with her first child in February 2020, visions of a maternity leave spent in mommy-and-me yoga classes danced in her head. Nine months later, she and her husband, Alex Leininger, who both work at Booz Allen Hamilton, welcomed a son. Though the Covid-19 pandemic dashed some postpartum plans, it didn’t diminish the feeling of support that she got from the McLean, Virginia-based consulting firm. Along with 14 weeks of parental leave and an extra $2,000 deposited into her flexible spending account for childcare, Zoeller was encouraged to work part-time to ease her transition back to work. Her husband was afforded that same opportunity and six weeks of leave.

“It’s one thing to say that you have a parental leave policy and that fathers can also take leave to help a mother who is recovering, but it’s entirely different to work somewhere that encourages people to use that leave,” says Zoeller, 38, a senior user experience strategist. “Not only did I have the support of the firm, but my husband had that same support. I was more scared of getting Covid than I was of any negative impact at work.”

Her experience isn’t the norm: American women have lost 3.8 million jobs since the pandemic began. Though women’s labor force participation rate has edged up slightly to 57.5% from its pandemic-era low of 57.2% in April 2020, it remains well below the 59.2% recorded in February 2020, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of the many reasons for this trend—including the fact that industries typically dominated by women were among the hardest hit by the economic effects of the coronavirus—research from the U.S. Census Bureau and Federal Reserve shows 32.1% of unemployed women ages 25 to 44 had left the workforce by July 2020 due to childcare demands, as compared to just 12.1% of men in that same group.

Many employers are now faced with trying to woo those employees back. Booz Allen Hamilton is not one of them. “We did not see a disproportionate attrition level. In fact, we saw the opposite—we saw less attrition from women, and it was due to the fact that we were willing to work with them to balance,” says Betty Thompson, chief people officer at the consultancy. Among other things, the firm’s managers were encouraged to avoid scheduling meetings at the start of the school day, so parents could get their kids set up on Zoom. 

That level of consideration helped Booz Allen Hamilton rise 42 spots this year to earn the distinction of being No. 1 on Forbes’ annual ranking of America’s Best Employers For Women. Forbes teamed up with market research company Statista to identify the companies liked most by female workers. The list was compiled by surveying 50,000 Americans, including 30,000 women, working for businesses with at least 1,000 employees. Representation at the executive and board levels were taken into account, as were initiatives to improve gender equity and recent or unresolved allegations regarding discrimination or misconduct.

One of the most important factors, of course, is the ability to make it to the top. Thompson says that when she joined Booz Allen Hamilton in 2008, she was often the only woman in the room. Today, women make up the majority of the C-suite and nearly half of the board. “You really can’t underestimate how much of a difference having women in very senior positions, on the board makes in terms of how women see their ability to be supported and developed,” she says.

Senior-level women are all too often one of the only (if not the only) leaders of their gender in the room, according to McKinsey, and those who experience this are more likely to report facing additional pressures and microaggressions. When BNSF Railway named Kathryn Farmer CEO in September—making her the first woman to helm a major North American railway—Judy Carter, chief human resources officer at the Berkshire Hathaway-owned business, says the response was overwhelming. “I talk to people who say, ‘I need to be able to see myself to know that it’s possible, to keep me inspired and to know I work for a company that will promote women,” Carter says. “Our workforce responded to that.”

When the pandemic began and many businesses sent their teams to work from home, BNSF was on the front lines, delivering medical supplies, toilet paper and food across the country. For some women, such work was simply untenable, so the Fort Worth-headquartered company invested in new benefits, including breast-milk shipping. “Our operations leaders were having to literally get on a train, move 12 hours a day and stay in a hotel before they could come back,” she says. “If you were a nursing mother, it’s very difficult to manage to be able to do that in an operational environment.”

The steps BNSF has taken to support its female talent are reflected in its standing on this year’s list, where it climbed 203 places to No. 6. But no firm’s rise was quite as significant as that of pharma giant Merck, which soared 212 places to No. 48. The Kenilworth, New Jersey, company’s ascent is illustrative of the drugs and biotech industry’s increased prevalence on the list—showing more year-over-year growth than any other sector—and perhaps indicative of the popularity of its pandemic-era initiatives.

“It’s been a period where we’ve seen how the demands of life have hit people differently. One thing we did recently was move into a hybrid office staff model, where we’re trying to be very intentional about when we need to come together and collaborate, and when we can meet over Teams,” says Carl Segerstrom, chief talent officer at Merck. “In terms of attracting, our returnship program finds ways to get women back into the workforce if they’ve stepped out.”

Returnships (internships designed for adults reentering the workforce after an extended period of time) have become increasingly popular in recent years. Merck’s program, called “Re-Invent,” launched amid the pandemic and welcomes its first cohort in the fall. After six months on the job, participants will transition into full-time positions.

Fidelity has taken a similar approach. Through a returnship called “Resume,” the Boston-based firm—which returned to the ranking at No. 9 after dropping off in 2019—has sought to attract female talent to the overwhelmingly male financial-services sector by offering flexible career paths.

“We have tried to take advantage of some of that attrition that was happening in other industries,” says Wendy John, head of global diversity and inclusion at Fidelity. “Career paths aren’t very linear. People take a break or life happens and it allows people to come in through an initial period and get initiated with the work, and many convert into full-time positions.”

When it comes to advancement, she says, employee resource groups have been essential, especially its Women’s Leadership Group, which for decades has served as the catalyst for many mentorship and sponsorship relationships. When sponsored women are more likely to ask for and get raises and report feeling satisfied with their career advancement than their unsponsored counterparts, per Accenture, it’s not surprising that even John attributes much of the success she’s had in her 24 years at Fidelity to the connections she’s made along the way.

“A lot of what I’ve experienced has come from getting exposure to a lot of senior women leaders, which for me largely came through my involvement with the Women’s Leadership Group,” she says. “People get exposure that they might not otherwise get in the workplace. That’s been really valuable for me.”


For Corey Yribarren, chief people officer at Sephora, the silver lining of this past year has been the exposure working from home has allowed her employees. “Because we’re not all in one location, there’s been visibility for people on Zoom, so there have been many employees, especially female employees, who have been participating in conversations at the executive level that’s given them exposure,” she says. “And then, the opportunities come in.” 

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to advancement for the 80% female workforce, LVMH-owned beauty business, which rose 114 ranks to No. 2. What gives employees of its San Francisco offices a competitive edge may not easily translate to retail stores and distribution centers. But Yribarren says her philosophy has remained constant: Prioritize output over hours, for women and men alike.

“We have to look at our entire workforce holistically and rally around all people to provide opportunities. I couldn’t do my job unless my husband was able to have support at his workplace,” she says, echoing the sentiment of Booz Allen Hamilton’s Zoeller. “The more we all are provided support, the more we as females benefit.”

For the full list of America’s Best Employers For Women, click here.

Methodology

To compile the list, Statista surveyed 50,000 Americans, including 30,000 women, working for businesses with at least 1,000 employees. All the surveys were anonymous, allowing participants to openly share their opinions. Respondents were first asked to rate their organizations on criteria such as working conditions, diversity and how likely they’d be to recommend their employer to others. These responses were reviewed for potential gender gaps. So if women, for example, rated an organization poorly on diversity, but men rated it highly, Statista would take that into account and adjust the company’s score accordingly. Statista then asked female respondents to rate their employers on factors such as parental leave, discrimination and pay equity. These respondents were also asked to nominate organizations in industries outside their own. The final list ranks the 300 employers that both received the most recommendations and boast the most gender-diverse boards and executive ranks.

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