Diversity Facts & Best Practices

Let The WICT Network be your guide in diversifying your team.

Research shows that gender diversity within companies greatly improves culture, boosts innovation and retention, and contributes to the overall success of the organization.

Let’s make an impact together.

The WICT Network advocates for women by commissioning gender diversity research and sharing proven diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) tactics that demonstrate the strong benefits businesses realize with a more gender diverse team. A way to do that is to follow the four Pluses of Parity — increased innovation, profitability, recruitment and employee retention.

Innovation

• Inclusive companies with women in all their ranks are one-point-seven times (1.7x) more likely to be innovation leaders in their market. – Bersin by Deloitte
• To experience a significant jump in innovation revenue, leadership teams need to be at least 20% female. And that increase jumps even higher when the percentage of diverse leaders increases. – Boston Consulting Group

Profitability

• On average, within the first 24 months of appointing female CFOs, companies see a 6% increase in profits and an 8% better stock return, per Bloomberg.
• Research shows that company profits and share performance can be close to 50% higher when women are well represented at the top, according to McKinsey & Co.’s Diversity Matters

Recruitment

• A survey from Glassdoor found that 76% of job seekers said a diverse workforce was important when evaluating potential employers.
• 61% of women look at the gender diversity of the employer’s leadership team when deciding where to work. – PwC

Retention

• Research from Harvard Business Review shows that having women leaders in a company’s ranks gives employees a greater sense of teamwork and higher workplace morale.
• Catalyst found that companies with higher levels of gender diversity and with HR policies and practices that focus on gender diversity are linked to lower levels of employee turnover.

The research tells the story:

Gender-diverse teams are more innovative.

• Having women as decision-makers helps a company better serve women consumers. COQUAL, a business-backed think tank, found that a diverse workforce “can be a potent source of innovation, as diverse individuals are better attuned to the unmet needs of consumers or clients like themselves.”
• According Accenture’s 2019 Getting to Equal report, a culture of equality is a powerful innovation and growth multiplier. In fact, employees’ innovation mindset is six times higher in the most equal cultures than in the least equal ones.
• Companies with above-average diversity within their management teams have innovation revenue of 45%, versus 26% for those with below-average leadership diversity. To experience a significant jump in innovation revenue, leadership teams need to be at least 20% female. – Boston Consulting Group

Companies with gender-diverse leadership are more profitable.

• Companies whose boards are in the top quartile of gender diversity are 28 percent more likely than their peers to outperform financially. – Mckinsey
• Companies with gender diversity in leadership outperform their less diverse peers. On average, their advantage is seen in a 48% higher operating margin, a 42% higher return on sales and a 45% higher earnings per share. In addition, gender-diverse teams make better business decisions up to 73% of the time. – World Economic Forum
• The top quarter of Fortune 500 companies with the greatest number of women representatives on their corporate boards outperform those in the lowest quartile by at least 53% in return on equity. – Deloitte

Women are key drivers in the global economy.

• Women direct 83% of all consumption in the U.S. and control over 31.8 trillion dollars globally. – Forbes & Catalyst
• A recent World Bank study concludes that additional and targeted inclusion of women in the workforce would advance economic growth and trade outcomes by 26 percent of the global GDP by 2025 – World Bank and World Economic Forum
• American women earned the majority of doctoral degrees in 2020 for the 12th straight year and outnumber men in grad school 148 to 100. Additionally, women have earned more undergraduate degrees than men since 1996. – Council of Graduate Schools, U.S. Census Bureau and American Enterprise Institute

Sponsorship and professional development opportunities make a difference.

• There is evidence formal learning and networking programs can speed career growth for women. For example, attending a women’s conference can double a woman’s likelihood of receiving a promotion within a year, triple the likelihood of a 10%+ pay increase within a year, and increase her sense of optimism by up to 78%, immediately. – Harvard Business Review
• Training, greater flexibility and commitment to work-life balance are the most powerful drivers of an innovation mindset, accounting for 70 percent of innovation mindset gains. – Accenture
• Women in STEM careers who are sponsored are 22 percent more likely to be satisfied with their rate of promotion. There is a 37 percent greater likelihood that these women will ask for a raise and a 70 percent higher chance their ideas will be endorsed. Additionally, they have a 119 percent higher rate of having their ideas developed and a 200 percent higher rate to see their ideas implemented. – Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Economist and Author, The Sponsor Effect and Founder, Center for Talent Innovation

Inclusivity matters.

• In addition to providing tangible, measurable benefits, such as greater innovation, a truly inclusive workplace is critical for employee retention. Research by Bain & Co. found that opportunities for professional development and growth boost employee inclusion across all populations. – Bain & Co.
• Data comparing teams with managers demonstrating low vs. highly inclusive leadership skills suggests inclusive leaders have direct reports with 90% higher team innovation, 50% higher team performance, 140% higher team engagement, and 54% lower turnover intention. – BetterUp Labs
• Research demonstrates that what leaders say and do makes up to a 70% difference as to whether an individual reports feeling included. And this really matters because the more people feel included, the more they speak up, go the extra mile, and collaborate — all of which ultimately lifts organizational performance. – Harvard Business Review
• McKinsey & Co. found 51% of employees who recently quit their jobs cited a lack of belonging at work as a critical reason for leaving. Employees from underrepresented identities were even more likely to cite this reason.
• Employees whose companies are diverse at senior levels are 2.4 times more likely to feel a strong sense of belonging. – Inc. and Achievers Institute
• Allies are catalysts for change and we need them. The evidence shows that when men are deliberately engaged in gender inclusion programs, 96% of organizations see progress — compared to only 30% of organizations where men are not engaged. – Harvard Business Review
• 95% of companies considered DEI leaders measure inclusion goal progress at least annually; 51% track inclusion goal progress at least quarterly – more than twice as often as other companies. – Harvard Business Review and SHRM