Anniversary of WLI's ElevateHER shows progress & work yet to do

Brice Wallace 

A decade ago, it was a vision. Now it’s a positive movement with substantive results.

Organizers and participants involved in the ElevateHER Challenge gathered recently in Salt Lake City to celebrate the program’s diamond anniversary, highlight success stories, and stress the need to grow the program and continue their work.

A program of the Women’s Leadership Institute, the ElevateHER Challenge was established to address a significant problem: the negative perception about the status of women in Utah, which a decade ago “was turning into a crisis as the state sought to attract and retain talent to our growing economy,” according to Pat Jones, CEO of WLI.

Ten companies took up the challenge at its start. At the celebration luncheon, 23 companies were listed as joining since then, as were 16 new companies.

The challenge calls on participating businesses and organizations to increase the percentage of women in senior leadership positions; increase the women retention rate at all company levels; increase the number of women on boards of directors and encourage women to serve on community and corporate boards; monitor pay by gender and close identified gaps; establish or enhance leadership development, mentoring and/or sponsorship programs for women; and recruit women to run for public office and provide follow-up support.

Companies will build return on investment, workforce retention and morale by focusing on supporting women and building a pipeline for women leaders, Jones said. That’s because men and women think differently and women bring to their jobs different competencies, she said.

“Importantly, these competencies are very skills that companies are seeking: providing improved ROI, employee morale and the ability to attract and retain talent,” she said.

Jones said WLI has seen improvements in elevating women in the state of Utah, but “wholesale change is slow and can be frustrating.” Improvements are most notable on boards and upper management, Jones said, “as opposed to the C-suite, although that is happening, too, where most of the leadership pipeline is built.”

The event featured several executives discussing how ElevateHER changed the cultures at their organizations, with the changes benefiting both men and women:

• The University of Utah School of Dentistry has added women to its leadership group and now has a gender-balanced admissions committee. As recently as 2018-19, more men than women applied for admission, but now men and women enroll at about equal numbers and slightly more women than men are graduating.

Dean Wyatt R. Hume noted that there’s more work to do, as 92 percent of Utah dentists are men.

“It turns out that when you give women an equal chance to join us, they become fabulous professionals and very successful in caring for people,” Hume said.

• CHG Healthcare has found the ElevateHER Challenge to be “a game-changer for the work we have done in our company,” according to Leslie Snavely, CEO and president. Of the company’s 4,200 employees nationally, women represent 62 percent of the total, 54 percent of leaders, and 46 percent of the senior leadership team. The company’s retention rate among women employees is 90 percent.

The company has had gender pay parity for seven consecutive years, has instituted programs advancing flexibility for women in the workplace, and has seen parental leave and flexibility policies result in a 93 percent retention rate for postpartum mother employees, she said.

Having a diverse workforce “isn’t just the right thing to do,” she said, but it also is good for business, the state and families.

• Clyde Cos., in the traditionally male-dominated construction industry, has “fostered opportunities and built a culture where women feel welcomed, valued and empowered to succeed,” according to Kathryn Isom, the company’s marketing director. While the construction industry has about 8 percent of its workforce being women, Clyde’s figure is over 10 percent. In many ways, she said, “women aren’t just present, but are leading and shaping the future of the company.”

Dani Weiss, the company’s assistant accounts payable manager, said that women who participate in WLI’s Political Development Series are 50 percent more likely to win their races.

• Law firm Parr Brown Gee & Loveless has a woman president this year and a women serving as chair of the compensation committee as it strives to be a better place for women, according to shareholder Jonathan Hafen. It also has a women’s lawyers group that meets monthly, often with as many men attending as women, if not more.

“I believe my firm’s culture and our policies have improved dramatically directly because we accepted the WLI ElevateHER Challenge,” Hafen said, describing the challenge as having “an amazing 10 years. We are so excited to see what all of us at WLI can accomplish in the next 10.”

• Latinos in Action, which helps prepare young people to become leaders, has 65 percent of its student body being Latinas. Of its 50 employees, 18 are women, according to Dr. Jose Enriques, CEO and founder.
• Franklin Covey has about 1,000 employees, including 750 in North America and 250 in Utah. For a while, its workforce has been a roughly 50/50 split by gender, but now the company is focused on ensuring no gender pay gap, according to CEO Paul Walker. Forty-eight percent of the company’s leaders are women, but it will grow to at least 50 percent by year-end, he said.

“There was nothing going on that overtly prevented that from happening, but I hadn’t been put in a position to seriously think about that or consider that,” Walker said of the time before the ElevateHER Challenge.

In recent years, the company has had “record after record years of revenue growth and profit. … We’re pleased with the results that followed, and I think that there’s a direct connection there,” Walker said of the challenge.

• The Larry H. Miller Co. now has three women directors on its board, including the lead independent director. The company’s chief legal officer, chief corporate affairs officer and chief people officer are among women leaders. Among leaders, over 70 percent are women. Recently acquired Swig has a workforce that is 70 percent female.

Steve Starks, CEO, received the A. Scott Anderson Ally Award. He said he has found women to be more conscientious, very detail-oriented, and compassionate, and lead with heart — “all things that I think every organization wants.”

“You need to have diversity of perspectives on your team,” Starks said. “I am a true believer that an executive’s role is to build world-class teams, and you can’t do that if everybody looks the same.”