Drive Talent Optimization by Elevating Women

Since the turn of the millennium, the number of people working in the U.S. has steadily tumbled and currently hovers around 62% — and it isn’t because jobs aren’t available.  

Rather, more employees are retiring than entering the labor market. People aren’t having children at a high enough rate to replace them. Policy changes mean immigrant labor is becoming scarcer. By 2033, an additional 1 million skilled workers will be needed to fill the roles that are available.  

And yet, women remain underutilized, underpaid, and underpromoted, despite being nearly half of the workforce and having completed more education, on average, than men. As of March 2025, women held just 11.6% of CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies. On top of that, a JPMorgan Chase report found that it will take 134 years for women to reach pay equity with men.  

As Tamla Oates-Forney, CEO of SHRM Linkage, said at the SHRM Talent 2025 conference in Nashville, “The math ain’t mathing.”  

Although these stats focus on women in the workplace, no one should make the mistake of thinking this is solely an inclusion and diversity (I&D) conversation nor that only women need to be part of the discourse. Instead, Oates-Forney stressed, focusing on women is a talent optimization strategy and strategic imperative — and it doesn’t happen at the exclusion of men.

Related article: Addressing Systemic and Modern Challenges Connected to the Gender Pay Gap

Recognizing Women’s Realities

Too often, discussing gender in the workplace is framed as a “women’s issue,” said W. Brad Johnson, founder of Workplaceallies.com and co-author of Good Guys: How Men Can Become Better Allies for Women in the Workplace (Harvard Business Review Press, 2020). “Men think, ‘There’s no place for me,’ but it’s not a women’s issue — it’s a leadership issue,” Johnson said.  

Women face myriad hurdles, both internally and in the workplace, including biases, having to prove their value, and developing the confidence to share their accomplishments. To advocate for women in the workplace, men need to understand these obstacles, even those as subtle as how men speak to their female co-workers.  

“Nobody ever comes up to me and tells me to smile more,” Johnson said. “When I give feedback, nobody tells me I’m emasculating or abrasive.”

SHRM research: Unequal Access on the Journey to the Top for Women in Leadership

He also noted that skills often associated with women — such as empathy, generous listening, humility, curiosity, affirmation, accountability, and transparency — are key for effective leadership.  

“Now that we’ve learned this,” said Mark Christensen of LifeGuides, a peer-to-peer mentorship platform, “why is it taking so long to get there?”  

Recognizing, rewarding, and promoting employees with these skills, as well as actively seeking out candidates who demonstrate them, is beneficial for both the organization and those who run it.  

“Your business is going to have a competitive advantage, but you’re also going to be a better leader,” said Lynn Wooten of Simmons University, a Boston-based women’s college that recently released a report called Thriving at Work 2024. It establishes the business case for women thriving at work; clarifies what thriving is and why it matters; and analyzes how leaders, cultures, and women themselves either support or inhibit thriving.

All Things Work podcast: Empowering Women in Executive Roles

Establishing the Business Case

Actively supporting and advocating for women in the workplace starts with holding men accountable and ensuring they understand the “why.”   

“It’s not to drive DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion],” Oates-Forney said. The question is: “Do we have the right people in the right roles? If the answer is no, there’s a disparity.”

SHRM on-demand webinar: Navigating New DEI Executive Orders

Sometimes, well-meaning businesses and leaders focus on the inclusion of women “because we know it’s the right thing to do,” rather than seeing it as a strategic imperative, she said. However, once men understand that the inclusion of women is not motivated by charity or the exclusion of men, it can be recognized as a talent optimization play that requires a collective effort to have a sustainable impact.  

“We have to get beyond a zero-sum way of thinking for men,” Johnson said. “It’s a fallacy that if women have more opportunities, that men are going to have less.”  

Both men and women can use the curiosity, interest, action, and accountability (CIAA) framework to collectively drive talent optimization in the workforce:  

• Curiosity. Motivation and openness to under team members’ unique experiences, strengths, and capabilities.
• Interest. Appreciation for individuals’ contributions and differences that, when leveraged together, drive stronger collective results.
  
• Action. Consistent patterns of individual and collective behaviors required to build a culture that values both uniqueness and belonging.
• Accountability. Commitment to defining and measuring outcomes with attention to the tools, systems, and structures that reinforce core values across the organization.

Implementing the framework starts with simply listening to the women you work with, Johnson said. “What are the headwinds they encounter? What do you not see because it doesn’t happen to you?” he added.

Finally, men who actively participate in advocating for and empowering women at work shouldn’t expect accolades. “You have to be sure that you’re not handing out certificates or putting men on a pedestal simply because they do a few things that are inclusive in the workplace,” Johnson said. “It’s got to be a partnership.”  

Explore the unique needs of women across their leadership journey and empower your organization to harness its full potential to drive business results by attending the SHRM Linkage Institute in September.