It’s tempting to accept a job offer when the role sounds amazing, but the company seems “fine,” thinking “but the job is perfect!”.... But it’s best to look closely at why the company is just “fine” and not as wonderful-sounding as the job itself. Unhealthy work environments can ruin great opportunities.
What makes a company a great place to work requires more than writing on the company website “we value all our employees.” It requires accountability and awareness. It’s about putting policies into action that make people’s lives better while supporting their career growth and compensating them for hard work. It’s about listening to feedback and making changes. It’s about respecting employees.
InHerSight receives a lot of information from women about their companies, both areas where they excel and those that need improvement. Looking at what we’ve heard and what our own research has shown us, here’s what highly rated workplaces offer their employees. Check out this list so you know what’s possible from the best places to work (and so you don’t settle for less!).
What the best places to work offer women
Diversity, equity, and inclusion
Inclusion in the workplace means creating a workplace where all people, regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, disability, age, and socioeconomic background are welcome, respected, and have access to equal opportunities.
Every path to an inclusive workplace looks a little different depending on factors like industry, problems that exist in the current company culture, whether diversity programming has leadership buy-in, and more. Not only do some companies struggle to achieve inclusion, but they also might not have the feedback channels set up to identify opportunities for improvement, and fix them.
Other companies are blazing the trail to a more inclusive future.
Take Netflix’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) approach. Based on our anonymous ratings, women of color rate Netflix 4.2 stars out of 5.0 as a workplace, compared to the average of 3.1 stars for S&P 500 companies we measure. As of last year, more than half of the company’s global workforce were women, and more than half of its employees with director titles were women.
In a special interview with Vernā Myers, the vice president of inclusion strategy at Netflix, we identified four key reasons for their success: the company culture runs on feedback, it has noticeable representation at the top, it has the right language, and it uses an “inclusion lens” that impacts all they do.
Many workplaces are doing the work to be more inclusive, so if that’s a priority for you—and we hope it is—it should absolutely be one of your qualifiers for finding a good job. Check out InHerSight’s Best Companies for Support for Diversity (rated by the women who work/have worked there).
Family growth and parental leave policies
It’s time for the United States to catch up to the rest of the developed world and offer realistic paid parental leave policies. Twelve weeks at partial or zero pay (IF you can get it) is unacceptable, especially when longer or full-pay policies are offered in Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and more.
Here are stats on our current situation:
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The Federal Family and Medical Leave Act allows people at companies with more than 50 employees access to unpaid, job-protected family leave for 12 weeks.
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Federal employees are eligible for 12 weeks of paid parental leave following the birth/adoption/foster care placement of a child, thanks to the Federal Employee Paid Leave Act.
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Thirteen states and Washington, D.C., have paid family leave laws in place or planned to go in place.
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The U.S. military just expanded coverage to 12 paid weeks.
While there’s no federal paid parental leave policy, there are companies offering far more paid time off than the average. InHerSight listed the paid maternity leave policies of 187 companies—check them out to see what’s available. Many have generous paid policies of four months or more.
And what about after you return to work? The best places to work acknowledge that people need places to pump, schedules that allow for them to pick up or drop off kids, child care assistance, and much more.
You can see which companies our users have rated highly for Family Growth Support and Maternity and Adoptive Leave on our Best Company lists.
Leadership opportunities
According to an InHerSight survey, 84 percent of women say it’s important or very important to see women filling leadership roles where they work, and 78 percent of women say it’s important or very important to see women performing the same work as them.
Unfortunately, there’s still a dearth of women representation in top roles. A 2022 report showed a record high 8.8 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs were women. Yes, 8.8 percent is a record high… and that’s with the number of women becoming CEO being twice as many as the year before. The total percentage of women in all management roles in 2022 was 40 percent, according to McKinsey & Company’s and LeanIn’s Women in the Workplace report.
Having more women in leadership doesn’t just show that a company respects women. It can mean you have more women mentors to work with, and you have a chance to follow a similar path. Plus, with more women with powerful voices, it’s more likely that your experience will be reflected in the company’s benefits and policies.
Look at Chronicle Books, a company with women in 64 percent of its leadership positions (as of 2018). They offered four-and-a-half months of paid maternity leave, and a flexible return-to-work program with an abbreviated schedule.
See which top workplaces our readers rated highly for Women in Leadership—specifically, how satisfied women are with how women are represented in leadership roles at their company, if their voices are respected and impactful, and if they feel similar leadership paths are available to them.
Competitive pay and benefits (for everyone)
The gender pay gap is still here, even if it’s slightly less of a gap than it used to be. Currently, women make, on average, about 83 cents on the dollar compared to men, with women of color typically making even less.
Unlike maternity leave, this is a global issue. A recent study showed women make less than men not solely because they choose careers that typically pay less than others, as some argue; it’s also because women in the same roles as men are paid less by employers (as many of us could tell you!).
Another issue is unequal benefits. Outdated benefits policies don’t reflect the needs of today’s workforce, leaving out people facing expensive medical needs.
For example, in 2002, zero major companies offered anything in the way of transgender health care benefits. These include things like mental health counseling, hormone therapy, medical visits, surgical procedures, and other treatments related to transitioning. This is per the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, which has been tracking whether major employers rated in their Corporate Equality Index (CEI), a benchmarking tool that measures policies, practices, and benefits pertinent to LGBTQ+ employees, offer at least one transgender-inclusive health care coverage plan. But in 2022, 662 major businesses had adopted gender transition guidelines and 91 percent of CEI-rated businesses offered at least one transgender-inclusive health care plan option.
The best places to work are listening to what employees need, and making sure they offer it. This means you have more opportunities to get the coverage you need, without taking on substantial debt, or going without the health care you deserve.
Here are resources to check out when looking for a good workplace for pay and benefits:
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InHerSight’s list of the Best Companies for Salary Satisfaction
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A guide to employee benefits package examples so you know what’s possible
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Companies that offer mental health benefits
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Companies that offer abortion care benefits
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Companies that offer transgender health care benefits
Flexibility
Flexible hours and the ability to work remotely also come into play with family growth support and benefits—but it’s worth mentioning again because of how important this is to career satisfaction.
Obviously the pandemic has made companies that never considered a remote work policy change their rigid stance. But many companies can’t support work from home for all employees (how can you manage a store from home?) or don’t want to (Elon Musk, unsurprisingly).
Allowing flexibility is more than having a policy of remote/hybrid hours. It’s about acknowledging that work isn’t everyone’s top priority. Excellent employees can have life obligations outside of work and still deliver. They might even work in-office, 9-5, but doesn’t it feel better when you choose to be there, instead of being forced to?
McKinsey’s 2022 “American Opportunity Survey” reports 58 percent of 25,000 surveyed Americans have the opportunity to work from home at least one day a week, and 35 percent have the option to do so five days a week. When given the chance to work “flexibly,” 87 percent take it! And the third most popular motivation for looking for a new job was to find a flexible working arrangement.
Luckily, many companies are listening. Read our rankings of the Best Companies for Remote Work and the Best Companies for Flexible Work Hours.
Now, make this the year you find a workplace that meets your needs!
