So-called “lazy girl jobs” have taken over TikTok chatter in recent months as Gen-Z workers continue to push back against burnout culture in corporate America. But according to a new report from McKinsey and Lean In, there’s nothing lazy about women who are seeking better work-life boundaries. In fact, the data shows that at every level of the corporate pipeline, women are as committed to their careers as their male counterparts, even as those counterparts continue to disproportionately dominate the highest levels of company leadership.
According to the 9th annual Women in the Workplace study—the largest, most comprehensive review of the state of women in corporate America and Canada—women are reporting higher levels of ambition about their careers than they were before the pandemic: 81% of women say they want to be promoted to a higher level this year, up from 70% in 2019. Across the more than 27,000 people surveyed as part of the study, 96% of women say their career is important to them, the same as men. This number holds steady even accounting for those who say they’re taking active steps to better prioritize their personal lives: 97% of women and the same percentage of men who say they’re seeking better work-life balance also say they view their careers as very important, and a little more than 80% of both groups say they also interested in achieving an elevated role.
“Something got into the ethos suggesting” that employees who wish to work remotely or flexibly are trying to do less work or are less motivated, Alexis Krivkovich, a senior partner at McKinsey, explained to Forbes. “Rather than flexible work being something that’s muting ambition, it’s actually unleashing it because what we hear men and women say equally is that the ability to have some amount of remote and hybrid work makes them feel more efficient and more productive.”
While men and women both told McKinsey that remote and flexible work is a top employee benefit they’re seeking, the new data show a divide in which men are benefiting more from working in-person than women. Higher levels of men report receiving in-person mentorship and feedback, connection to the work and mission, and a sense of being “in the know” from office attendance.
Meanwhile, women—and particularly those from marginalized or historically excluded communities—are feeling like the office is a minefield of microaggressions: Close to a third of Black women and LGBTQIA women reported their competence or judgement being questioned at work, while 35% of women with a disability say they’re interrupted or spoken over more than their other colleagues. Nearly three quarters of women who experience this treatment “self-shield,” meaning they speak up less in the workplace, code-switch, feel pressure to change their appearance or behavior, and otherwise internalize the pressure to conform. Rachel Thomas, the CEO of Lean In, says when women work remotely, they experience fewer microaggressions—but this dynamic is could nonetheless “hamper” women’s career progression.
“We know these women are more likely feeling need to be perfect, which gets in the way of them fully showing up and fully speaking up at work,” Thomas said. “Companies are really missing out on everything that women have to offer.”
Companies are also missing out on what women have to offer by continuing to neglect the “broken rung” that sees more men promoted to the highest levels of corporate leadership at higher rates than women. While women represent more of the c-suite than ever before—28%—women of color make up just six percent of all c-suite roles, and the Women in the Workplace data shows that progress is moving in the wrong direction. For every 100 men promoted out of entry level into a manager level, only 87 women and 73 women of color are also getting these promotions. Black women are at a particular disadvantage: for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 54 Black women were promoted in 2022. This is particularly discouraging, Thomas and Krivkovich say, because Black women had been gaining in promotions over the last few years; in 2021, they nearly hit parity, with 96 promotions for every 100 promotions for men.
“This is one of the single biggest issues and levers for companies in terms of changing the trajectory of women and getting more women into leadership,” Thomas says, noting that it’s a bigger issue than the alleged “glass ceiling” women face in the c-suite. This isn’t a new phenomenon, either: The Women in the Workplace data has consistently shown, since 2015, that promoting women at lower rates is having a negative effect all the way through the leadership pipeline.
“There’s no excuse at this point,” she says. The broken rung “remains broken when it’s highly fixable with concerted effort.”
That effort can include measures like tracking hiring and promotion data, investing in DEI programs and establishing criteria that help take bias out of the hiring and promotion processes.
“It’s not rocket science,” says Krivkovich. “But it is rigor.”
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