Prepared for the future: training women for corporate leadership - Cover Story

HR Magazine, April, 1997 by Michelle Martinez

Forward-thinking companies that want to retain high performers, develop future leaders, and secure a competitive workforce are investing in mentoring programs that help women and minorities flourish.

Women make up 46 percent of the U.S. labor force, yet only 10 percent of all corporate officers are women. Among the companies in the Fortune 500, only one has a woman CEO.

The day will soon come, however, when companies will have no choice but to promote women into top positions, simply because there will not be enough Caucasian males to fill the available jobs. But many of the most talented women in the workforce are turning their backs on corporate America.

When a woman manager leaves the corporate ranks, many organizations assume she is giving up paid work altogether. However, when Catalyst, a research organization that conducts confidential studies for companies, asked several thousand women why they left their positions, the answers were striking: The women Catalyst surveyed were either moving to companies that provide a more level playing field, or starting their own businesses.

"Most women don't want to fit into a male-dominated company mold," explains Judy Rosener, professor at the University of California, Irvine, and author of America's Competitive Secret: Utilizing Women as a Management Strategy. Many of the successful ones leave.

"If leaders could see that human capital can convert to money, we could convince people that they would be better served by breaking the glass ceiling," explains Rosener, who believes that attitudes will not change until people at the top understand that such change is in their economic interest. "We need to tie human resources to human capital and look at it as a commodity, something to maximize."

LEVELING THE FIELD

That's exactly how George C. Harvey, former CEO of Pitney Bowes in Stamford, Conn., saw it back in the early 1980s. At that time, the company began recruiting more women into its sales force. Impressed with their performance and contributions to the bottom line, Harvey set out to reward and advance them.

Harvey's philosophy, says Johnna G. Torsone, Pitney Bowes's vice president of personnel, had nothing to do with affirmative action, but everything to do with performance. When the company eliminated institutional barriers, women as well as minorities were able to perform at their maximum level, improving company-wide performance and ultimately increasing profits.

"He took tough stands when it wasn't the popular thing to do," recalls Torsone. "He set the example by appointing women into nontraditional positions, such as running factories. As the senior leader of the company, he made some pretty bold moves. People were furious with him, but he did it because he believed in it."

Over the years, Pitney Bowes has embraced and enhanced Harvey's mission of recognizing all people for their accomplishments. Resource groups made up of women and minority employees at all job levels once served as advisors to senior management. Now that structure has been "token to another level," says Torsone. "Called the corporate diversity task force, its mission is to set a vision for the organization, ensuring that we are attentive to diversity in a broader sense."

Because Pitney Bowes' goal is integrating diversity into every segment of the business, each of its eight business units are required to develop objectives against the company's diversity plan. The financial services division provides a good example of how that strategy works: Key employees developed a model of what diversity should look like in each unit. Then, the president of the financial services group challenged those employees to "prove that such an environment is better than what we are working in." The business unit employees used the model to brainstorm revenue-generating ideas, and the 10 best ideas were implemented.

"The units that have been most successful have integrated diversity thoroughly into the business environment," says Torsone. "They develop the best products because everyone can bring their thoughts to the table, offering different points of view."

ESTABLISHING FEEDER GROUPS

According to Catalyst's 1996 Census of Women Corporate Offices and Top Earners of the 978 women with vice president-level titles, only 271 (28 percent) held positions dealing directly with profit-and-loss responsibilities the type of experience needed for very senior positions.

"For any organization willing to create a level playing field, the challenge is to have a diverse group of high performers that can feed into the line or 'pipeline' positions," says Torsone, who adds that this is an area targeted for improvement at Pitney Bowes. "Establishing feeder groups really brings us back to planning how to develop, assess and train employees."

Of course, employers can attempt to raid other employers of their talent to create feeder groups of talented women, but most organizations that are committed to advancing women and minorities try to develop their own talent.