At the companies that participated in the Diversity Best Practices 2017 Inclusion Index, women and people of color are well-represented among non-managers and managers. However, they don’t maintain their numbers at higher levels— they enter the talent pipeline, but they are not being moved through to senior management and corporate executive level jobs.
Among the companies participating in the Inclusion Index, women of all races are more likely to have a larger presence among the top 20 percent of earners than they do among corporate executives. This begs the question, are companies more focused on paying women fairly than helping them advance?
Increasing opportunities for women to advance to leadership roles in the organization begins with understanding the internal pipeline and identifying barriers and obstacles to advancement, and establishing measurable goals for building equity.
