These organizations are paving the way for gender equality

Long story short: These organizations are paving the way for gender equality

August 6, 2021 10:33 AM

Organizations are looking out for their female employees’ well-being in a big way.

In this week’s top stories, several organizations are tackling the challenges women face in the workplace, from financial instability to their mental and physical well-being. Career community Fairygodboss is making it their mission to close the gender wage gap between Black women and white men. Their salary comparison tool allows women to anonymously list their salaries, in order for other women to recognize pay disparities and advocate for fair pay.

Ensuring women can become more financially secure through higher wages and greater savings is the goal of The Mom Project, which recently partnered with Capitalize to help women consolidate their 401(k) and other retirement accounts and maximize their retirement savings potential.

Supporting many of these initiatives are two female philanthropists: MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates announced a $40 million investment into organizations that promote gender equality. See more of our top coverage below:

Women of color are burned out and dissatisfied with their company’s DEI initiatives

According to

Fairygodboss

, a career community centered around empowering women, 1 in 3 employed women of color plan to find new employment by the end of 2021, says Romy Newman, president and co-founder. These employees are eager for better wages and more flexible work schedules: 50% of Black women surveyed said that a pay raise would get them to stay, and 30% wanted more PTO and flexible work time.

Fairygodboss found that Black women are also searching for more transparency and action around DEI strategies: 63% of women of color are largely dissatisfied with their company’s response to DEI. Moreover, 60% of women feel their companies are not prepared to handle racist incidents that occur in the workplace.

Read more:

Women of color are burned out and dissatisfied with their company’s DEI initiatives

Menopause is the next taboo topic to tackle at work

While 20% of the workforce experiences menopause each year, according to the blog Menopause View, the conversation around how to help those women has often been off-limits. One-third of people experiencing menopause hide it at work, according to Vodafone, despite the impact it has on their mental and physical well-being.

Employers should approach menopause as they do with other challenges employees are facing. The first step is to have more open and more frequent communication about menopause and the seriousness of this phase in a person’s life. Typically, menopause lasts eight to 10 years, and 5% will experience menopause before they turn 45, according to Unmind data. Providing education will help combat common misconceptions around the process and allow for more open and honest conversations.

Read more:

Menopause is the next taboo topic to tackle at work

How The Mom Project is helping women maximize their retirement saving

Changing jobs can come with a mountain of administrative work for both HR and the employee, leaving important tasks like retirement plan rollovers to fall through the cracks. That’s why The Mom Project, a digital talent marketplace for professional women, and fintech company Capitalize have teamed up to help the organization’s talent base of more than 500,000 women find and consolidate their retirement accounts.

Financial insecurity

can be felt more heavily by women, who often bear the burden of full-time employment with personal responsibilities, like caring for their children or sick and elderly loved ones. Because of these costly responsibilities, only 39% of women say they are confident they will have enough money to last 25 years into retirement, according to data from Willis Towers Watson, compared with 54% of men.

Read more:

How The Mom Project is helping women maximize their retirement savings

MacKenzie Scott, Melinda French Gates give $40 million to gender equality groups

Philanthropists MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates joined forces to give $40 million to four organizations that

promote gender equality

. The recipients were part of the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge, which was announced last year by Scott and French Gates and also funded by billionaire Lynn Schusterman’s family foundation.

The $10 million recipients announced in August are Building Women’s Equality Through Strengthening the Care Infrastructure, Changing the Face of Tech, Girls’s Project Accelerate and The Future is Indigenous Womxn. The $8 million recipients are FreeFrom, which fights intimate-partner violence, and IGNITE, which trains women to enter political activism.

Read more:

MacKenzie Scott, Melinda French Gates give $40 million to gender equality groups