Supporting women in the seasons of life as they get their first gig, get pregnant, or go through menopause is crucial in retention and advancement, said Sangeeta Moorjani, head of tax-exempt market and lifetime engagement at Fidelity Investments.
People want to have a sense of belonging and connection, said Moorjani, who spoke at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit this week. Women want to know that if or when they’re burnt out someone will support them. That means creating an open forum for women at your organization, Moorjani said, so every woman can have that place as a sort of equalizer—whether it’s a woman going through menopause, a woman who just had her first child, or a woman in her first job.
It’s the same in higher education, where not a lot of women are tenured. They just seem to get stuck, said Linda Livingstone, president of Baylor University. At the Texas campus, they’ve started a writing colloquium for female staffers. “They meet once a week for three hours at the library, and they write,” she said. “They’re from all different disciplines, so they create this community as a sense of support for one another.”
A number of women who have participated have made it through the tenure process, she said. The focus and support clearly helps.
Employee resource groups are another great way to provide support if your organization is lagging, said Grace Zuncic, chief people and impact officer at outdoor apparel and gear retailer Cotopaxi. ERGs are particularly crucial in supporting women of color. Zuncic explained that when she worked in manufacturing, where women are often underrepresented, her employee resource group used to “take over the manufacturing facility for women’s month to celebrate women’s contributions to that business and that brand.”
Apart from that, benefits geared toward women obviously help. So it isn’t simply finding a sense of belonging, because benefits go hand in hand with a workplace’s culture. At Cotopaxi, that means being remote-first. It makes a tremendous difference, Zuncic explained, especially for caregivers. At Fidelity, it’s flexibility; and at Baylor, it’s mental health support.
In terms of health care benefits, Livingstone said Baylor is adding menopause resources in its benefits package for women, in an effort to keep women at that stage in their lives from leaving the workforce. Fidelity is implementing the same. Moorjani stressed the importance of health savings accounts and flexible spending accounts, because women tend to spend more money on health care than men do. “Longevity is our friend, but we spend a lot of money along the way,” she said. If women feel supported with their health, with their caregiving responsibilities, and any other bumps on the road, it could fuel upward mobility in their careers. And eventually, the hope is they’ll support other women as well, so that more and more women hold leadership roles.
Still, sometimes it comes down to you. In that case, make yourself visible, Livingstone said. Early in her academic career, as a former college basketball player, she participated in a faculty free throw contest. “I was the only woman out there,” she said. Well, she won. Afterward, she said, people knew who she was on campus, and Livingstone was even asked to serve on an athletic committee. It was one that was pretty popular and typically reserved for more experienced faculty members. Livingstone credits that moment with really helping her climb the ladder of success.
