Happy Monday!
Lots of great articles this week starting with one for the men from this weekend’s Wall Street Journal. Aptly titled ‘Women at Work: A Guide for Men’ this is a great one to share with your male boss and colleagues. I also found it to be a helpful read in terms of identifying behavior pitfalls that could be holding me back. The full article can be found here:http://www.wsj.com/articles/women-at-work-a-guide-for-men-1418418595
The second article details the slide in women’s participation in the workforce – in 1990, the US had one of the top employment rates for women in the world at 74%, but we have now fallen to 69% today. Japan is seeing first had the devastating effects that low female workforce participation can have on their economy, so it is time to address the issues leading to the ‘motherhood trade off’ while there is time: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/upshot/us-employment-women-not-working.html?ref=business&abt=0002&abg=0
A very encouraging development on the move to add more women to corporate boards – Germany has passed a law mandating women’s inclusion on corporate boards. With study after study showing that adding women to corporate boards leads to improved company performance based on many metrics, one would have thought this would have been an easy issue to address, but leave it to the practical Germans to tackle the issue head on: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/world/europe/germany-to-mandate-womens-membership-on-corporate-boards.html?_r=0
And from the ‘get rid of the guilt’ file, social psychologist Ron Friedman has solved the whole work/life balance issue once and for all – by declaring it DEAD! His advice: “Instead of endorsing the work-life balance myth, organizations are far better off empowering employees to integrate work and life, in ways that position them to succeed at both.” The full article can be found here: http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/09/opinion/friedman-work-life-balance/
And lastly, from the Harvard Business Review’s article entitled ‘The Financial Services Industry’s Untapped Market – Women,’ the authors explore the question: “What is the cost to an industry that misses the lessons of leadership diversity and ignores inclusive behaviors? In the case of the financial services industry, the penalty could be more than $5 trillion in the U.S. alone.” The full article can be found here: https://hbr.org/2014/12/the-financial-services-industrys-untapped-market
We have our last event of the year this week – please join us for the Houston Holiday luncheon on December 17th.
Huge thank you to all our committee members for doing a fabulous job in programming our events for this year. We all owe them a debt of gratitude for their hard work and creativity in arranging and executing events for us all to enjoy.
In January, we are thrilled to have Heidi Lawson, Esq. in all 4 cities talking about recent case law that explores the liability issue many firms and funds face. She will share concrete steps to take to protect both yourself and your firm. This event is a must-attend for CFOs, Compliance Officers, General Counsels and anyone serving on a board. We look forward to seeing you all at an event soon!
Kind regards
Christine