The mirage of workplace meritocracy

BOB SAFIAN: Hi everyone, it’s Bob. Today’s episode is a provocative session drawn from this year’s Masters of Scale Summit, moderated by a colleague of mine, the host of the podcast Hello Monday, Jessi Hempel. Jessi talks with three terrific leaders: the CEO of Lean In, Rachel Thomas; the chief diversity officer at Meta, Maxine Williams; and the founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First, Reshma Saujani, who has previously appeared as a guest on Rapid Response.

The powerful group digs in on topics like gender equity in business, the state of meritocracy in the workplace, and whether things are getting harder for white men. They offer a sobering reality check on corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, DEI, and the sometimes conflicting priorities of child care and careers. It is a candid, challenging, and data-rich conversation. So let’s get to it. I’m Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

[THEME MUSIC]

JESSI HEMPEL: We have a really important conversation for everyone. I’m Jessi Hempel, host of the Hello Monday podcast. Thank you very much. I’m very grateful to be here for a conversation about not just the state of the state, but what role we can all play in the state of gender equity today.

Copy LinkThe state of women in the workplace

I’m going to start our conversation with you, Rachel. Lean In partnered with McKinsey to conduct the Women in the Workplace Survey. We just heard it mentioned, and I would love you to set the stage for this conversation.

RACHEL THOMAS: So let me set the stage on the report first. Hopefully many of you are already familiar with it, but this was our 10th annual, and over the last 10 years, we’ve collected data from over a thousand companies and surveyed over 480,000 employees. This is a big data set. The good news is we have seen progress for women at every level, and that matters, particularly in senior leadership.

This year, 29 percent of C-suite leaders are women. Back in 2015, when we started the report, that was 17 percent. But when you get underneath that, it is much more fragile than it appears on the face of it. I’ll just give you one example. Most of that progress at the C-suite was driven by companies, on average, adding one staff role and putting a woman in it.

The other thing we see so clearly in the data is that early career women are, by and large, being looked over too often. Women make up 59 percent of college degrees, but only 47 percent of entry level hires are women. Then, at that first critical step up to manager, that first promotion, we see what we call the broken rung. For every 100 men promoted, only 81 women were promoted last year, and those numbers have hardly budged since 2018. They’re stuck, and it’s worse for Black women and worse for Latinas.

They’re actually losing ground at that first critical step up. So this is a moment in time when we’re seeing some progress, but we really need to keep our foot on the gas. The final thing I would say, lots of findings, I hope you go find the report and read it. The final thing is this year, for the first time in years, company commitment to gender and racial diversity is declining.

At that moment of momentum, we’re at risk and are seeing signs in the workplace and in the zeitgeist that companies are pulling back.

Copy LinkThe illusion of meritocracy

HEMPEL: That piece in particular is really important to keep in mind as we have this conversation. Maxine, you are the one person sitting on this stage actually working in this field in industry right now at Meta. What does the world look like where you are?

MAXINE WILLIAMS: You are? Okay.

HEMPEL: Small question.

WILLIAMS: Yeah. I mean, the work, and we’re so thankful to Lean In and McKinsey for the research you do, which is sound and useful and practical.

We can build solutions based on what we know to be true. We, in some ways, were the beneficiaries of early research that you had done.

Having seen, for instance, that performance attribution bias was something impacting progression, we were able to address that. Now, let me just wind that back a little bit.

What we see reflected in reality is what is sort of instinctively understood, but you get a little bit of the why in it, which is this. You will hear people say, in 2024, as a nod to your mention of pulling back, other people might say backlash. You will hear people say, we need a return to meritocracy. Embedded in that is an assumption that we used to be a meritocracy, and things have gone too far.

Rachel just mentioned some progress. Women went from 17 percent of C-suite 10 years ago to 25 percent.

THOMAS: Twenty-nine, we should be 51, by my math.

WILLIAMS: Or 59. Depends on how you look at it.

So if you’re going from 17 to 29, you say there’s some progress. At Meta, we put in place some strategies which got us 10 years ago from 15 percent women in technical roles, which is an interesting one, right, intersections matter, to 25 percent women in technical roles. This is during a period where the percentage of women graduated with computer science degrees did not move from 18 percent, okay?

So we go from 15 to 25. That gain is seen as a loss by people for whom there was not a meritocracy, but they were the beneficiaries of performance attribution bias. That means that if before it was easier for you to get ahead based on your potential, or how much somebody liked you, as opposed to actual merit, then you see these gains as losses.

We’ve tried to develop strategies based on people understanding, everybody understanding, that it is better for us to have a true meritocracy. That means addressing bias in the systems that were giving people undeserved advantages. So if we consider the strategies in that context, where there’s something in it for everyone to have the best talent, building the best products, people are more likely to engage, to sign on, and to want it to happen.

HEMPEL: Maxine, that was an eloquent and beautiful description.

If I jump in for all of you, I mean, you make decisions day in and day out based on data and then use data to solve the problems you see. There’s no greater evidence that there is bias in the system holding back women’s progression than the broken rung. This is big data showing year over year that women are less likely to get that first critical promotion.

THOMAS: They’re right out of university. Their resume is short, and they are somehow less likely to get it. So you either have to believe that men are fundamentally more talented than women, or you need to believe that there is performance attribution bias in the system. This is the big data on bias in the system.

The good news is we can fix it. We just need to focus on the data and do what Meta did and really focus on solutions.

Copy LinkThe dismantling of DEI programs

HEMPEL: Well, Reshma, I want to bring you into this conversation now.

You have done so many things, but the first time I became familiar with your work was around Girls Who Code. I think many people here are familiar with Girls Who Code, and I am very curious if you believe that there is a DEI backlash.

RESHMA SAUJANI: Yeah, both of you are so much more hopeful than I feel about this right.

HEMPEL: Depends on when you talk to.

Saujani: I’ll be honest. I have been enormously saddened by what I’ve seen the past year and feel like, as I spent over a decade of my life building that pipeline of talent, I just feel like I understand now the sisters and the women whose shoulders we’ve stood on since the 1900s about how progress is dismantled.

I understand it. I see it. And it’s so sad to me that the attack on progress is happening here in Silicon Valley, the place that’s supposed to believe in a meritocracy, not this room.

But here.

And there’s no better example. Did you want to?

HEMPEL: I just want you to dig in for any of us who aren’t working every day as closely as you are to these issues. When you say the progress is being dismantled, what are you talking about?

SAUJANI: Exactly. So, for example, I was just on a panel with the Dean of Engineering at Stanford. She said in 2010, if you looked at the CS graduating class, it was about 18 to 19 percent women. Today it is around 35 to 37 percent women. So it’s extraordinary. And I see this at every computer science and engineering school.

Those are my girls. We’ve taught 650,000 girls to code in America over the last 10 years. And guess what? We did it through DEI programs, or what some would call them. Companies like Facebook, Meta, and Google helped me raise a hundred million dollars over the past 10 years to build the pipeline of talent.

It’s finally happening. We have finally built that talent, but over the past year, all of these programs are being dismantled. Every program started at the same time as Girls Who Code has been shut down. Women Who Code, everyone’s either shut down or facing enormous funding problems.

See, I saw this a couple of years ago. So every time I would raise a little money, I would bank some of it in a bank account, not for me, but for the organization. I knew this moment was going to come, so because of that foresight and, unfortunately, due to difficult circumstances, Girls Who Code is in a different situation.

So we now can teach 50,000 girls, 60,000 girls a year and continue to build that pipeline. But the problem is, if these companies believe every 4.0 student that comes out of Stanford or MIT is a DEI hire and doesn’t give her a job, we’re actually not going to make the progress that we are situated to make.

So I think that we have to have a very honest conversation, as I think we’re having right now, about dismantling unearned privilege. It’s never been a meritocracy. The reality is that 75 percent of high school valedictorians are girls; the vast majority earning bachelor’s degrees are women.

So you have to rationalize why the most educated population of talent doesn’t seem to get a job.

HEMPEL: Well, I mean, you are, yeah, she gets a clap for that, right? Yeah.

You are very clear that you are seeing what you perceive to be a DEI backlash.

There are some people who are afraid to compete with women.

SAUJANI: Competely.

WILLIAMS: It’s absolutely.

SAUJANI: Be honest. No one’s sneaking in the door.

Copy LinkMen’s perspective on women in the workplace

WILLIAMS: One of the statistics in the study, which I thought was most telling, was about where young men are. Young men are two times as likely now as they were six or seven years ago to believe that their gender is holding them back from getting an opportunity, a raise, a chance.

Older men overestimate the progress that has been made and they’re like, everything’s good for women now, right?

SAUJANI: A, this is such a powerful point.

WILLIAMS: Yes, and it is about competition. And by the way, those numbers, and it’s not just Lean In who’s done work on this. I’ve seen work in the European Union across 27 countries finding the same results. It is more acute among young men who are unemployed or young men in lower socioeconomic brackets.

This is where the threat of competition is greater.

SAUJANI: And look, I want to give some truth to that. The status of men in this country has shifted.

If you are a manager at Walmart, or you’re like, “What are you talking about? My boss is a woman,” but when you are working at Meta or elsewhere, it looks different. So it’s like, we have to approach this in a very different way than we’ve been.

HEMPEL: I’ll ask, does this need to be binary?

I’m going to put you on the spot and ask you, do men have to do worse for women to get what they need out of the world? Is this the right framework for this conversation?

THOMAS: The right framework is all ships rise. The data on diversity is super clear, and if you look back, happier employees, more innovation, better business results.

But senior level men do show up as having a notably rosy view of what’s happening in the workplace. Both the progress that women have made, the representation of women in leadership, and how good and effective DEI efforts have been. I think that’s because their view of the workplace is different, their perch in the workplace is different, which matters so much in a moment when there is a backlash on DEI, which means it’s a backlash on fighting bias and equity, which is just heartbreaking.

We need our senior level men, who often are driving an organization’s priorities, to be with us and that means they need to see the workplace clearly.

WILLIAMS: Just to be clear, it’s not that men need to do worse for women to do better. It is that we have opened up space for more people to compete. Women now have a chance to get from 17 to 29 percent because we are moving more towards a meritocracy where you can look at a broader range of competition and select the best, and they can perform.

The fact is that, let’s just level set here, white men are the only group who increase in representation from entry level to C-suite.

THOMAS: You have our data.

WILLIAMS: No, read it!

WILLIAMS: You move from entry level to C-suite, and white men are the only group that increases in representation. From 33 percent in entry level to over 50 percent in C-suite.

So it’s not like things have really failed for men now.

Let’s all agree on the reality, and then we can deal with the perceptions, and the fear, and the anxiety about my shifting place, etc. Men still dominate, and white men more so.

If you look at white women, white women go from 29 percent of entry level roles to 22 percent of C-suite. There’s a drop off there. For women of color, it’s worse. You start at only 17 percent of entry-level jobs, and then guess how many at C-suite? Seven percent. Okay. Clearly, white men are still doing really well and dominating.

There is more competition, so yes, now they’re going to see three women in a space. We are right now in this moment sitting where there is a record number of Black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. We should be thrilled about that. A record number. Do you know what that number is Eight.

Never been higher.

But those are eight positions that were probably held by white men before. So their perception is, things are getting so much worse for me. Among those eight, how many are women?

HEMPEL: Right. Two.

WILLIAMS: If we all agree on the reality, if we all believe, as many of us in this industry do, that competition is great, because you get the best talent, we can invest then in the things that allow us to truly reward merit and not performance attribution bias, so we get the best talent. It may mean that there is a shift, but it’s not because men are doing worse.

SAFIAN: As a white man listening to this, I can’t deny the sentiments or the data. I’ve benefited from an unfair advantage, even though I don’t like to think about it that way.

Everyone believes in the idea of meritocracy, but no one likes to lose out. It’s part of what makes these topics so fraught. There’s defensiveness, there’s guilt, there’s anger. Still, the numbers don’t lie. When we talk about opportunity, we have to be clear-eyed, as Maxine puts it, about what that opportunity is.

So what might even out the playing field, so that everybody wins? We’ll talk about that –after the break. We’ll be right back.

[AD BREAK]

Before the break, we heard Jessi Hempel, host of the podcast Hello Monday, lead a discussion about gender equity with Lean In CEO Rachel Thomas, Meta chief diversity officer Maxine Williams, and the founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First, Reshma Saujani. Now the group talks about challenges like child care as well as bright spots for coming generations of women in business. Let’s jump back in.

HEMPEL: Reshma, your current work, the place where most of your energy is, is actually looking at an issue that is adjacent to the one we’re talking about.

Tell us a little bit about Moms First.

Copy LinkWhy Reshma Saujani started Moms First

SAUJANI: Yeah, so I stepped down as CEO of Girls Who Code because I realized I could teach millions of girls to code, but if I didn’t help their mothers, I hadn’t solved anything. During the pandemic, I had my second child, I was homeschooling my five-year-old, and I had to rebuild Girls Who Code from scratch because the first resources to go are those dedicated to women and girls.

Half the girls we teach at Girls Who Code are under the poverty line, and so many of their mothers were essential workers. But because daycare centers were shut down and schools were closed, my students, instead of going to college, had to stay home and take care of their siblings. This is how a generational cycle of poverty happens, especially for girls of color.

So, what do I mean when we live in a broken structure of care? We are the only industrialized nation that doesn’t have paid leave. We are the wealthiest nation that invests the least amount of money into child care.

Forty percent of parents are in debt because of child care. So oftentimes, in a family where you’re paying 40 percent of your income or more than your mortgage for child care, guess who’s downshifting their careers? It’s us. That’s exacerbated by the fact that we have a motherhood penalty.

Men, for every child they have, get a salary increase of 6 percent. For women, it’s a 4 percent decrease for every child. That’s how structural inequity is created. Far too often, when we hear these stats and see this data, our solution is to say, well, we have to fix women.

We have to give them a mentor or a sponsor or teach them how to color code their calendar because if they did that, then they could have that CEO job.

HEMPEL: I mean, my calendar’s color coded.

Saujani: Yeah, so, every strategy we’ve employed since the ’70s has been about equipping women with skills. Now we have to teach them AI. It’s never been about that.

We’re good. It’s always been about the structure. I actually think these numbers will change dramatically if we offer paid leave, if we implement universal affordable childcare, because the reality is when you’re in a situation and don’t have childcare or flexibility, you’re still doing two-thirds of the unpaid labor at home, and then you’re in a workplace where you’re like, “I don’t need this.” You’re like, “I’m done.”

So if you fix the structural problems, I think women, quite frankly, will have the just energy to stick with it.

HEMPEL: So, there’s no doubt that structurally we’re not set up for success in caretaking. On all kinds of caretaking, by the way. I’m not speaking narrowly about raising our children. There is so much care to take, of our children and of our parents, right? But I want to bring us back before our time concludes to where we know we can make some movement, right?

One hopeful thing that came up in your report was actually what businesses are doing to support mothers, and that’s a bright spot, right?

Copy LinkExploring the narrative of women opting out of the workplace

THOMAS: What I would say is, these are corporate organizations, right? So has the investment in parents and caregivers, and those struggling with their own health issues, gone up extraordinarily over the last decade? Yes, and it should, but this is corporate America.

It should be on the front edge of providing the support that parents, caregivers, and people who are sick need to fit life into work. So, Reshma’s data looks at what’s happening across the entire workplace, where women and parents are often unsupported and left out.

So that’s the first thing I would say, sorry, not quite the bright spot you were looking for. I do want to say on top of what Reshma said, which I agree with, is I don’t want anyone leaving here thinking, “Oh, you’re talking about this broken rung at the first step up to manager, and a lack of childcare support. Are women opting out? Is that what’s driving the broken rung?” Because nothing could be further from the truth.

HEMPEL: It’s women. Again, women are the actors and the—

THOMAS: Women at the entry level leave their organizations at exactly the same rates as entry-level men. They are not leaving at a different rate. They ask for promotions at exactly the same rates.

So just please don’t walk out thinking that there is not deep-seated performance bias in the system because all the data tell a very different story.

HEMPEL: Well, what I would love for people to walk out thinking about is those young women in those organizations. So talk to us a little bit, and anybody can take this, you’re obviously primed to take it first. What do we do to support young women?

WILLIAMS: I’m going to stay on the system side. We know that three things are best practices for hiring. You get the criteria upfront, you don’t let them wiggle, you use diverse slates to make sure you’re looking at a broad array of candidates, and you put people involved in the hiring process through bias training.

And yet, even the simplest things experts recommend, just over one quarter of companies do all those things.

My biggest thing would be, we’ve seen progress, practice by practice, but if you look across the whole suite of things most experts would tell you to do as a start, organizations need to be doing.

I’m very much a systems worker, so my focus is on changing the system. I don’t care about the optics, I try to create less opportunity for bias to operate, less surface area.

So now there’s a check and a balance. There’s objective criteria. Managers have to check X, Y, Z, all these things, so I don’t have to depend on their hearts and minds. Yet in this moment of what we’re calling backlash, I just want to stick up for why I sound more hopeful, because I also believe the data I’ve seen that the general population hasn’t heard about this backlash.

HEMPEL: That’s really important.

HEMPEL: It is open.

WILLIAMS: And we’re deep in it and we’re really focused on it. It’s not going in the right direction, that’s true. But still today, most people, if you look at Glassdoor statistics, most employees still believe that it’s a good thing to have DEI initiatives. Certainly Gen Z women and underrepresented people, who are now going to be the majority of the population, would say they only want to work at a place focused on that, right?

HEMPEL: Although the least committed are young men.

WILLIAMS: Well, yes, young men. There’s a growing number, as I said, the trajectory isn’t good, but as we sit here right now, it’s still the majority who believe this is good for business and for them. That’s to be there with perspective. This isn’t the first time we’ve gone through backlash.

Things have been worse in the past, right? From the suffrage movement to second wave feminism, from the 1866 veto of the first Civil Rights Act to now, we keep going. There’s been lots of backlash, and we’ve gotten through it.

Even when you do everything right, getting people to understand in their heads and in their hearts that this is good for everyone is critical.

Copy LinkBusiness as a driver of change

SAUJANI: Can I cheat? I want to go back to your last point. I think businesses are key leaders in making structural change. We launched a business coalition of over 119 businesses. For the first time, Moms First elevated childcare as an issue on the presidential stage.

The last time we had an opportunity to get childcare passed in America was with Nixon, and we’re going to have an opportunity again. Every person in this room has to demand it happens.

They have to demand that it’s a business issue, a labor market issue, that they can’t retain the most qualified women and men without making it happen. Businesses can drive this. The last point on young women, listen, I believe in this generation. They’re not breastfeeding in closets, they’re not putting up with nothing, right? If there’s ever going to be an opportunity for radical change, it’s going to be this generation. I am hopeful about that.

HEMPEL: Folks, thank you so much for joining us.

SAFIAN: My thanks to Jessi, Rachel, Maxine, and Reshma for bringing these tough, delicate topics to life. Listening to their conversation, I can’t help but share the concern that businesses are overreacting in their discomfort over DEI. Diversity is a reality in our world, making diverse perspectives valuable and a diverse talent base an advantage. The assumption that opportunity is a zero-sum game, us versus them, misses the point. Forget the labels if they get in the way, but don’t forget the higher goal. We want to encourage everyone to contribute, and fairness is the foundation of participation. I’m Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.