Study: The Business Benefits of Gender Diversity and Working Women on the Front Lines (Gallup, Badal, 2014)
Finding: The study of more than 800 business units from two companies representing two different industries — retail and hospitality — finds that gender-diverse business units have better financial outcomes than those dominated by one gender.
InPower Insight: The human race was designed to work better at the top and the bottom, at home and at the office, in gender partnership!
Summary:
Many studies look at the impact of balanced gender groups on leadership – because there’s where we perceive the greatest imbalance to be. But Gallup took another angle and looked at the impact of men and women working together on the front lines – in retail. This is the first study of this kind we’ve seen. The results – as they are in the leadership studies – are dramatic:
- Gender-diverse business units in the retail company have 14% higher average comparable revenue than less-diverse business units (5.24% vs. 4.58%).
- Gender-diverse business units in the hospitality company show 19% higher average quarterly net profit ($16,296 vs. $13,702) than less-diverse business units.
Career Coaching Tip: If you’re leading a team – at any level – make an extra effort to make our team diverse, in terms of gender and other characteristics. This may require you to rethink how you hire! Open yourself to that possibility because you’ll be making it that much easier on yourself to lead a team that performs well! Getting a job? Look at how diverse the team is that you’re joining. Will they appreciate what you bring to the table even if it’s different? Talk to them about this and if you want away because you don’t feel you’ll be appreciated for the diverse view you bring, find a polite way to let them know this is why they lost you!
Keywords: working women, research, gallup, retail
Guide to Women in Leadership
Organizations with women in their executive suites regularly out-perform others. Yet rising female executives (and their mentors) are frustrated at how hard it is to break through the glass ceiling. In this extensive guide, Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel into higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
