Worcester Business Journal

8 Worcester Business Journal | March 5, 2018 | wbjournal.com Continued from previous page Massachusetts public companies becoming more gender inclusive Of the 100 largest public companies in Massachusetts, those with no female directors on their boards has fallen, while the number of those with three or more female leaders has risen. Source: The Boston Club 0 10 20 30 40 50 Zero One Two Three plus Number of female directors on company boards, 2003-2017 2003 '04 '05 '06 '07 '08 '09 '10 '11 '12 '13 '14 '15 '16 '17 stock options for those found to have engaged in sexual harassment; and to insert clauses requiring any executive to pay a judgment in a harassment case, and not the company, as is traditionally the case. "These types of clauses are particu- larly important now," Van Dyck said. Cutting down on workplace harass- ment will help women and companies, said Evelyn Murphy, a co-chair of the Boston Women's Workforce Council, which is working to close the wage gap. When women are harassed, Murphy said, they may sue or walk away from the company. In either case, such instances can often hurt their salaries. "In a very profound way, it will help reduce the pay gap," Murphy said. Yet, despite all the national calls for workplace culture improvements, Van Dyck said not many companies have put anti-harassment clauses in place yet. He has conducted harassment training for companies and found high-level execu- tives will still sit out such classes. "That, to me, sets the tone for the rest of the organization," Van Dyck said. Disclosures, term limits, mandated quotas Slow progress is frustrating, said Patricia Flynn, an economics and man- agement professor at Bentley University who has closely studied gender diversi- ty. Businesses will say they would add women to their boards if they had a vacancy – but then fill vacancies with men anyway, saying they can't find qualified female candidates. "We just turn around and say, 'Where have you looked?'" Flynn said. "They're just asking the people in the room. That's no longer viable." The Boston Club has advocated for a greater amount of disclosure in compa- nies' proxy statements to more clearly show where diversity exists. Others sup- port going in that direction, too. Several large pension fund managers and 15 of 19 major corporations interviewed for a 2015 U.S. Government Accountability Office report said they supported more disclosure on board diversity, and all who expressed an opinion on board search processes said they supported broader searches beyond just CEOs in order to help find more women. Yet, the GAO found no appetite for another Boston Club recommendation: Instituting term or age limits to open up more board seats. A similar survey conducted last year by the Boston executive consulting firm Spencer Stuart found 3 percent of S&P 500 companies said their boards were con- sidering term limits. Public companies are required to have women in 40 percent or more of their board members in Denmark,

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