One of the major workforce trends significantly impacting organizations today is the fact that women are leaving the workforce in droves. Studies show that more than half of women who start out in Fortune 500s have left before they reach the executive level. Where do they go and why does it matter?

Women Who Leave Your Organization Become Your Competition

Women who leave your organization either join your competitors or become your competitors by launching their own businesses. In fact, as of 2010, there were more than 8 million woman-owned businesses in the U.S. and their numbers are growing 50% faster than start-ups headed by men.

One reason this matters to your organization is purely economical. Two recent, high profile studies have found that having even one woman on a company’s board correlates with significantly better performance:

Credit Suisse looked at 2,400 global corporations over eight years and found that large-cap companies with at least one woman on their boards outperformed comparable companies with all-male boards by 26 percent. Catalyst found that Fortune 500 companies with women on their boards had significantly higher returns on equity (53%), better sales (42%), and a two-thirds greater ROI than companies with all-male boards.

So clearly, female leadership is not a “nice-to-have.” It’s a must-have for companies to survive and thrive. And yet very few companies have been able to move that bar.

There are many factors that contribute to women leaving organizations. And your good intentions aren’t enough. You need an action plan to bring women into the top ranks of your company and keep them there.

The Attract, Develop and Retain Female Talent keynote focuses on:

• The business case for women in the workforce;
• What women bring to the workplace;
• Factors that signal second-generation bias at the company level and six ways to fight it;
• An action plan for developing and retaining women leaders;
• How you can help your company succeed by making it a great place for women to succeed.

If you need to learn how to attract, develop and retain women leaders within your organization or market, contact Anne to arrange for a keynote that will help you reach your specific audience effectively.