#2 – The Great Breakup! What Women Want in Their Careers & Why They are Leaving Their Roles in Record Numbers To Get It

Hi, and welcome to the Daring to Leap podcast. I'm your host, Loree Philip. I'm so excited to dive into this week's episode with you. So in this week's episode, we're going to be dissecting the McKinsey Annual Women in the Workplace study, discussing the three must haves that professional women want in their careers, and what that means for you. 

It's so dramatic. I know, but what the report saw in the data is that women are demanding more from work, and they're leaving their companies in unprecedented numbers to get it at the highest rate in years. 

So in the study, just to illustrate this, when they were looking at women in leadership as an example, for every woman that got promoted to the director level in their company, two director level women left.

That's how fast they're leaving it. They're leaving faster than they're able to fill the pipeline. And so this is becoming quite a problem for companies. So if you dig into the information of the study, what comes through is is, okay, women are leaving, right?

So why are they leaving? What do they want? And so that's what we're going to go over the three must have that professional women want in their careers. And we're going to start with number one. Women want opportunities to advance.

They are just as ambitious as men in their careers. They want to move up, they want development opportunities, they want great projects, they want to be challenged. Careers are important. So the first one is they want opportunities to advance.

And in the data this was even more pronounced in young women under the age of 30. And so these advancement opportunities, which is kind of interesting. Interesting is in the study it noted that some of the recognition for women wasn't coming through for these advancement opportunities because women were more likely to be burned out in their position because they are two times as likely than men to spend substantial time on employee well being and diversity equity, inclusion work.

And they're not being recognized for it in their performance review. So they're doing all of this extra great important work. Not being recognized is stretching them really thin. They're burned out and then they don't get those opportunities for advancement. 

So the second must-have that women want is flexibility and choice in the work arrangement. And the key here is on choice because not every woman wants to work from home. In this study, there was a percentage of women who would rather spend the whole time in the office. 

But what they found is that the majority of women prefer remote and hybrid work. And they want to be able to choose. And this really came through during the pandemic when some of us were able to experience for the first time working from home, hybrid work schedules, things like this, and started to see the value in being able to do that. 

We were able to get our work done. Do it well and have more room in our personal lives and just being able to have that flexibility if we have family if we have personal commitments, whatever it is, it really did help. 

And a lot of women are preferring that type of schedule. And that's one of the major things that they want, is the flexibility piece. The third thing that women want in their must-haves is they want a better work culture and they're starting to demand it. 

And not just any culture, one that prioritizes employee well-being, diversity, equity, inclusion. And so there are companies that are really starting to prioritize this area for sure, but a lot of companies are slow to turn around. 

And it's the difference between saying that you prioritize your employee wellbeing and diversity, equity, inclusion and actually doing it. And what the women in this study are saying is they want to work for companies that are actually doing it. 

And I can't agree more. But as you hear these three different musthaves for the women that were in the study, I'd like for you to take a moment just to reflect on this for yourself. Are these the three must haves for you?

What is most important for you in your career? What are the differences? Does this resonate with you? It would be great if you could take some time to really reflect on that for yourself and decide what you want.

Because the women in the study are taking a stand for what they want in their career. And what's cool is that companies and employers are starting to notice. And that trend. If it keeps moving in this direction, there is going to be no choice for these companies to shift their policies around supporting retaining women in their companies.

So my thoughts on these trends from a company perspective and how that relates to you, is that there will be more opportunities for advancement for women, more positions becoming available because of people moving around, more focus on retaining women talent in the organization.

But the progress is going to be slow. It takes time to put in money, and a lot of budgets are tight right now, but it takes time and money to shift these kinds of things. And so what I challenge you to consider is that you don't need to wait for your employer to come around.

Be proactive. Understand what you want from your career. Create a plan to get it. If there's something, for example, you want to do in your current company that you work for your current career, get yourself ready.

Get the skills in place, get the mentors in place so that when that position becomes available, you'll be ready. So I'm so excited to see that women are taking a stand. I'm going to use this as motivation for myself and just a broader excitement about the environment on where things are shifting in the workplace.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you have enjoyed it, I would love for you to subscribe, leave a review and share it with a friend. Until next time.