Leading Women

Metrics Good to Great

Susan Colantuono on 01 Aug 2009 at 4:34 PM
1 Comments Latest on 19 Oct 2009 at 10:39 AM

You get what you measure! That wisdom helps shape how organizations manage their women's initiatives. Over time meaningful metrics have evolved from simple % of women in the population to more sophisticated measures that indicate a lack of bias in advancement. Here are several examples of measures of increasing sophistication:

Price Waterhouse Cooper (featured in our Summer '09 IWiN Newsletter)

Like most companies, PWC Boston looks first at the percentages of women at certain levels. But that doesn’t tell the whole story of women’s advancement and so PWC takes metrics to a deeper level.

First, as a service company, they have certain clients that they consider “marquis” clients. The path to partner is paved in part on one’s track record with these key clients. So, PWC also tracks the women who are assigned to marquis clients.

But even this isn’t deep enough. A woman could be assigned to a marquis client, but not benefit from the kinds of roles and responsibilities that provide the experiences she needs to move up in her career. Another, metric they track is the significant “roles and range of roles” that women fill.

Good to Great

It's good to measure the % of women at different levels of management, it's great to measure (and increase) the % of women with P&L experience. P&L experience is a pre-requisite for most executive and CEO positions.

It's good to measure the % of women in the pipeline. It's great to examine the % of middle level women who are perceived as having high potential.

It's good to measure the activities of your women's initiative, network or affinity groups - for example the number of women who participate in a mentoring program, or the number of women who participate in leadership development programs. It's great to be able to correlate the outcomes of your initiative to improvement in key business or HR metrics. For example one accounting firm we know measures the new business brough in by women as a result of their participation in leadership and networking training programs.

It's good to measure women in management. It's great to measure women on the board. Studies show that the higher the % of women on corporate boards, the better overall performance, higher quality of corporate governance AND the stronger the internal pipeline for women.

It's good to measure percentages - it's great to also measure pay equity.

What does your company do that's good...and great?

Lead ON!

Susan

Susan Colantuono Susan on 19 Oct 2009 at 10:39 AM

Successful Practice: Metrics that Matter

by Priscilla Lynne Young

When Shay Blanchette , Assurance Partner of Price Waterhouse Coopers, spoke about mentoring at a recent Leading Women event, several of the metrics she cited caught our attention, so Shay arranged for us to speak with Tanya Sexton, the firm’s Northeast Market Diversity Leader.

Tanya shared that, like most companies, PWC Boston looks first at the percentages of women at certain levels. But that doesn’t tell the whole story of women’s advancement and so PWC takes metrics to a deeper level.

First, as a service company, they have certain clients that they consider “marquis” clients. The path to partner is paved in part on one’s track record with these key clients. So, PWC also tracks the women who are assigned to marquis clients.

But even this isn’t deep enough. A woman could be assigned to a marquis client, but not benefit from the kinds of roles and responsibilities that provide the experiences she needs to move up in her career. Another, metric they track is the significant “roles and range of roles” that women fill.

To ensure positive movement on these and other metrics, the goals of PWC’s women's initiative include reducing turnover and education for career advancement. To keep proven and promising talent on board, Tanya cites their work/life flexibility program for men and women. One of the highlights of their robust education strategy has been the commitment of women partners to “directly support the development of women in this office.”

Tanya also explained that women wanted to have more understanding about how women partners achieved success in their roles. So, the women partners in the Boston office formed an alliance “to be more responsible for directly supporting the development of our women in this office.” A highlight of their efforts was this year’s partner panel, where partners talked about what life is like at that level and how they got there.

By tracking key metrics, PWC Boston is able to assess the impact of these and other programs and to ensure the relevance of its women’s initiative.

Originallly appeared in Leading Women's Summer '09 Power UP! newsletter.