In 2023, nearly 80% of companies reported having woman-focused programming as part of their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. And President Joe Biden committed $3 billion to advance gender equity and equality globally in 2024. Yet despite these initiatives, gender parity is estimated to take another 131 years. So why can’t women get ahead?

As someone who trains teams and leaders to create inclusive work cultures for women, I study organizations’ practices on how they aim to achieve this. Companies overwhelmingly fall short.

I believe this is partly because many organizations host training sessions only as a surface-level effort to address the challenges women face at work, without imparting any actionable skills that can help women get ahead.

For instance, I once attended a women’s leadership event where I was asked to teach successful business skills. Naturally, I suggested that I teach a hard skill, like negotiation—an area in which data suggests that women tend to trail men. However, due to a concern that their employees would attempt to use the training to renegotiate their salaries, the organization asked me to speak about soft skills like effective listening and communicating with empathy.

Read more at: https://www.fastcompany.com/91160579/3-skills-women-need-to-succeed-in-the-future-of-work