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The Future of Work is Flexible: Changing our Workplaces to Meet the Needs of our Workforce

Mona Andrews

Our current workforce has evolved significantly in the last several decades. However, our workplaces have remained stagnant, based on a society that no longer exists – one in which being a stay-at-home mom was the expectation for women. As Shelley Zalis explains, “The rules of work were written 100 years ago, for men and by men, because women simply were not in the workplace.” Our workplaces, in large part, still cater to men. They do not challenge biases or invest in mentorship or support that would welcome women and encourage them to pursue leadership roles; they still assume talent looks like a man. This status quo is not sustainable; we must evolve our workplaces to match our workforce. Today’s organizations are failing women. According to the Mercer Report, we are actually moving backwards in trying to achieve gender equality in the workplace. Recent findings from the World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report show that at our current rate of change, the economic gender gap will not close for another 170 years; that’s 52 years longer than the previous report projected. Reasons for this backslide include a gap in pay for women and persistently small numbers of women in senior leadership positions. Women represent more than half of our nation’s PhDs, business school applicants, college graduates, and valedictorians; yet there are more CEOs named James than women. If women equally participated in the global economy, they could generate additional GDP worth $28 trillion by 2025. This year, LeanIn.org released the findings from their fourth annual study on the state of women in corporate America. In the four years of this study, women’s progress in the workplace is stalling.