Hartford Business Journal

12 Hartford Business Journal • June 5, 2017 www.HartfordBusiness.com from page 1 by companies to publicly commit to diversifying their workforces — espe- cially positions tra- ditionally held by men — in order to shrink the gender- parity gap and gain an edge in recruiting top female talent. "We know that diversity is key to innovation, and inno- vation and diversity go hand in hand," said Gail Jackson, UTC's vice president of diver- sity and inclusion. UTC, in its quest, committed to follow a plan by Paradigm for Parity, a coalition of business members pledging to have 30 percent of corporate leadership positions filled by women near- term and half by 2030. UTC already has about 28 percent of its top jobs filled by women. Paradigm for Par- ity — whose three co- chairs include UTC board member Ellen Kullman, retired chairman and CEO of DuPont — provides a five-step action plan for attaining gender parity. So far, about 45 companies have pledged to seek gen- der parity among senior leadership by 2030, including Bank of America, Frontier Communi- cations, KeyCorp, LinkedIn and Voya Financial. UTC has focused on diversity in the work- place, including gender and color, for more than a decade, "but the Paradigm for Parity pledge was an opportunity for us to sort of put a stake in the ground and publicly talk about our commitment to diversity inclusion broadly and to the advance- ment of women specifically," Jackson said. It's a good financial move, too, according to a report by Credit Suisse Research Institute, which found that companies with a higher participa- tion of women in decision-making roles gener- ate higher market returns and superior profits. Companies where half the senior operating roles are held by women show 19 percent higher return on equity on average, the report said. Carolyn Treiss, board president of the recently launched Connecticut nonprofit Per- manent Commission on the Status of Women Inc., praised UTC's move and said more com- panies should follow suit. "I think it highlights the fact that … at the rate we're going, women will never achieve parity in leadership in UTC or major corporations across the country without a committed effort on the part of corporations to do so," Treiss said. She hopes it sends a message to Connecticut companies large and small that if a company the size and stature of UTC seeks leadership parity and its benefits, others will want to as well. UTC's challenge UTC, which has about 200,000 employees globally and puts its senior leadership tally for women at about 280 of the 1,000 top jobs, will have to raise its number of women about 1.7 percentage points a year, on average, to reach its 50-50 goal by 2030. That will come through new hires and promotions. Titles in those top 1,000 jobs are senior direc- tors and up, including vice presidents, senior vice presidents, executive directors and presidents. UTC will incorporate elements of Paradigm for Parity's action plan with efforts it already undertakes. UTC, for example, already has 114 employee resource groups around the world that address workforce issues, including diver- sity and gender, 42 of which are focused on the advancement of women, Jackson said. Additionally, UTC has long mentored women, but it's also developing sponsorship programs for high-potential female employees, which aligns with Paradigm for Parity's plan. "Mentors counsel and they give advice and sponsors do that as well, but sponsors also have influence and authority to help you make those career moves," Jack- son said. "So spon- sorship is sort of the next level of invest- ment in an employee." UTC also has an inclusion-training program it's rolling out globally that meshes well with what Para- digm for Parity calls unconscious-bias train- ing, she said. In that training, companies engage men and women at all levels, starting with the CEO and senior leadership, to ensure that compa- ny leaders comprehend, own and address the conscious and unconscious biases that pre- vent women from succeeding. That's step No. 1 of Paradigm for Parity's five-step plan. Other steps include signifi- cantly increasing the number of women in senior operating roles and setting measur- able diversity goals and holding the senior team accountable. Treiss said such actions will motivate change. Despite the many qualified women out there, they are not rising to senior leadership positions in major U.S. corporations, she said. "If there is not an active effort on the part of corporations to look at why that is and to try to tackle it, it's not going to happen on its own," she said. "It hasn't happened yet." Women hold only 14.2 percent of the top five leadership positions at S&P 500 companies, according to a CNNMoney analysis. Only 24 companies had female CEOs, or 5 percent. Moving the needle Sandra Beach Lin, Paradigm for Parity co- chair and retired president and CEO of solar silicon maker Calisolar Inc., said Paradigm emerged from a summer 2015 meeting of 50 women, including former or current CEOs, board members and academ- ics, but mostly women who had been in business many years and not seen women leadership numbers increase. Their action plan emerged from several days of dis- cussion, giving CEOs a practical guide to move the needle. The organization launched last December. The group plans an early June annual meeting, including companies that have taken the pledge, to review best practices for implementing the action plan, roadblocks that arise and best practices to help companies learn from each other, Beach Lin said. She said the leadership needle is moving, perhaps only by a decimal point, but the group wants to see improvement by whole numbers. Jackson said there's a lot of emphasis on UTC's target of gender parity, "but it's really about ensuring that we have the ability to attract and develop the best workforce … and then, once they're here, to make sure that we're able to have people contribute to their highest potential, that's really what it's about." n Workforce diversity is focus Carolyn Treiss, board president, Permanent Commission on the Status of Women Inc. ▶ ▶ ' We know that diversity is key to innovation, and innovation and diversity go hand in hand.' Gail Jackson, UTC's vice president of diversity and inclusion. At this CT manufacturer, women rule the factory floor By Parija Kavilanz CNNMoney C arey Manufacturing makes pedestri- an products — the same handles and latches it's turned out for 40 years. But it's making a name for itself these days because of an unusual distinction. Almost half its workers are women, and women outnumber men on the factory floor. Millie Ramirez, 23, is one of them. She was hired as an intern in 2015 and worked her way up to production supervisor. She han- dles two of the biggest machines in the plant. After moving to Connecticut, she graduated as a top student from her high school's four-year manufacturing program and then a community college advanced manufacturing course. But she struggled to get hired. She interviewed with at least five other manu- facturers for a machinist position. At one firm, she says, she was told she wasn't the right fit because she probably couldn't lift more than 25 pounds. She carries much more at Carey, whose clients range from military to auto and aerospace firms. But mostly she's pro- gramming and steering machines in her typical 10-to-12-hour workday. "Advanced manufacturing is about using technology and not so much physical work," she said. "I love seeing a product come to life." Although manufacturing today is driven by technology more than physical labor, the industry is still heavily male. According to the Labor Department, women make up about 30 percent of work- ers, and that's up from 27 percent in 2002. At Carey, seven of the nine women on the floor were hired in the past four years. They operate machines, assemble prod- ucts and inspect products for quality. Pete Egan, the human resources man- ager, says he didn't strive for gender par- ity: "I'd like to take credit for it, but it kind of just happened." As word spread "that we give every- one a fair shot," Egan said Carey earned a reputation of embracing women workers. The manufacturing industry is strug- gling with high demand for skilled workers and not enough supply. Egan frequently checks in with local technical schools and area community colleges to nab their best manufacturing graduates. Trade schools and colleges, like A.I. Prince Technical High School in Hartford, where Ramirez was a student, are enrolling more women in manufacturing courses. n Millie Ramirez, 23, is one of the top production supervisors at Carey Manufacturing. P H O T O | C N N M O N E Y G R A P H I C | P A R A D I G M F O R P A R I T Y

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