(upbeat music)
-: Happy International Women's Day.
I'm Rich Lesser CEO of BCG.
I'm joined by my colleague and friend Nan DasGupta,
Nan is the managing director and senior partner
in our Toronto office and she's the leader
of our Women@BCG program in North America, welcome Nan.
-: Hi, Rich thanks for having me
and happy International Women's Day.
-: I always look forward to celebrating this day
and recognizing the incredible achievements of women
inside and outside of BCG.
And while there's obviously much to celebrate
about the world's progress toward a more gender equal world,
I can't help but reflect in this year today
how this pandemic has caused so many women
to leave the workforce at an alarming four times
the rate of men.
The burden of caregiving, teaching, running a household
while also working a job during the pandemic
has created a pressure cooker environment in many households
and women are bearing the brunt of it
and they're dropping out of the workforce by the millions.
It's a real moment of truth for women
and for the organizations that they're working for.
Nan, do you see it that way?
-: Yeah, absolutely Rich.
I mean it's really staggering,
the load that women are bearing right now
particularly caregivers and it's been a full year.
I mean, we conducted a study recently this year
that found women have increased housekeeping
and caregiving duties from 20 hours a week
pre pandemic on average
to over 40 hours a week since last April.
That's the equivalent of carrying a second full-time job.
You can imagine both the physical and the mental strain
of sustaining that load for women, it's a real concern.
-: And unfortunately it's not only devastating
for the women themselves who are forced to drop out,
but for the organizations that they're leaving behind.
When we go back and look at the great recession of 2008/9,
we saw that the S&P index declined by more than 35%,
but in organizations who scored higher on inclusivity
their stocks rose by 14%.
And we see again and again, including within BCG
that greater diversity fosters innovation
and strengthens resilience
and it's just critically important right now,
organizations equipped with a range of voices
and perspectives throughout the ranks
are better able to innovate, to take risks,
to solve problems creatively
and to turn challenges into opportunities.
-: I couldn't agree with you more Rich.
I mean it's so critical right now
that organizations act proactively
to mitigate some of these potentially lasting impacts
of the current headwinds.
The good news is that if you take the U.S statistics
62% of working U.S moms say,
that their employer has offered some sort of support
to help address the increase
in home responsibilities with COVID-19.
So we do see many organizations taking a positive step
in a number of different ways.
So what are we seeing?
Some of the great examples here include offering flexibility
for example, subsidized part time
or new flex time or subsidized LOA options.
Another way that companies are offering to help
is by really looking at the ways we work
and adopting that work.
So reprioritizing projects, for example,
or rebalancing work across teams,
pushing deadlines where it's possible.
I think one of the really critical things
that companies have really started to take seriously
is providing support for mental wellbeing.
And this is everything from checking in one-on-one
to creating access to mental health providers
and introducing additional paid holidays
for people to really rest and recharge.
So all of those actions are having an impact and helping.
Another action that we see as really critical
to sustaining long-term inclusivity
is for organizations to actively enable support
and nurture allyship in their culture.
-: I wanna talk more about your work on allyship.
I thought it was terrific and I thought it was so positive
and provided really tangible steps
towards making our workplaces more inclusive.
And as I think about the theme of IWD, choose to challenge
it strikes me that allies can change the status quo
in small ways and large ways.
Can you just tell me more about it?
-: Sure, I mean, in our study we were keen
to better understand the depth and breadth of bias
that employees and underrepresented groups feel.
And to come up with some tangible actions
to counteract that feeling.
So we did this study in several developed markets
around the world and the themes and findings
were actually super consistent.
Today I'll reference the Canadian study
where the underrepresented groups we looked at,
included women, LGBTQ, people of color
and indigenous employees.
Sadly, we found that over 50% of underrepresented employees
see bias in their day-to-day work.
43% are questioning whether middle management
is really committed to DE&I.
Less than 20% of women think they have personally benefited
from the DE and I programs that their companies have
and 50%, less than 50% say they have allies at work,
for women in fact, that number is only 36%.
So only 36% of women feel they have allies at work.
So when we talk about an ally we're referring to someone
who actively questions, rejects and combats exclusions
and works against discrimination.
Allies can support and advocate for people
and for communities of which they're not a part of.
And they use their own personal power, their own access,
their own privilege to uplift others.
So when we describe it in that way
it seems like a very powerful and important role
and the truth is it is a very important role.
In the study we found that underrepresented employees
who have allies at work are 1.6 times
less likely to perceive obstacles
in their day-to-day environment and twice as likely to say
their workplaces free of bias.
-: Most of us have good intentions and probably think,
Oh, of course, I'm an ally, everybody knows that,
but how do we ensure the good intentions
are truly having impact?
-: That's so true, that's so true.
We named the article, Small Actions, Big Impact:
How to Be an Ally at Work and Why It Matters",
because it's really true that small behavior changes,
small acts can make a big difference.
And I think you're right, most people deep down
do want to be an ally, they feel they're an ally
but they may not be really outwardly projecting that.
So we came up with a set of questions
to help people approach their allyship
with a bit more intention.
So I'll give you a couple of questions that we pose
and suggest that you ask yourself
if you're trying to be a better ally.
So number one, ask yourself,
what obstacles exist in my workplace
for underrepresented colleagues, how can I help remove them?
We know that underrepresented groups often face overt
and subtle biases and obstacles.
So allies can look out for those barriers
and intervene in positive ways.
So an example of this might be,
when you see exclusionary behavior
like people talking over a woman colleague in a meeting,
try to get in there and speak up and try to create space
for your colleague to get back in the conversation.
That's just one small example.
Another example of a question we pose, you can ask yourself,
how can I educate myself to become a better ally?
It's not up to all of our underrepresented colleagues
to educate their colleagues
on equity or inclusion challenges they face.
We all have to recognize that we have knowledge gaps
and we have to find ways to learn more
and really embrace learning more.
So the suggestion here is make time
for one-on-one conversations,
for group dialogues with your team
on really important topics like anti-racism
or gender bias in the workplace
and do this regularly on an ongoing basis,
not just when something comes up with the news
or it's very topical.
I'll leave you with one third question Rich which is,
ask yourself, what behaviors can I demonstrate publicly
to foster an ally culture?
By demonstrating publicly allyship culture
we contribute to making inclusive behaviors,
the norm in the workplace.
And I think this is especially crucial for leaders
who have an opportunity to be role models
and through their behaviors which are watched
very, very closely, they can really demonstrate
what allyship looks like.
So these can be small things like,
add pronouns to your email signature, for example
or celebrate the accomplishments of the female employee
who may not be getting as much recognition
as some of her male peers. - It's interesting, if I think personally,
I started leading BCG's New York office back in 2000
and thought we were doing a good job on retaining women
and that was certainly the reputation New York had
around the world.
In 2006, 2007, our CEO at the time asked to use York
as a case study thinking that when we did the work,
it was going to show what New York was doing really well
on retaining women.
But when we actually did the work
we found that we had had so many good women
who hadn't stayed.
Yes, we had retained some and that was true
and at the time relative, BCG has come a long way since then
but at the time it looked quite good, but a lot had left.
And when we went into it, it was for me
that was long before the word allyship was coined,
was just a really clear demonstration
of the difference between
trying to be non-discriminatory,
trying to be positive and empathetic
and really being an ally
particularly in a profession like ours
that can be intense and really helping people
understand that we will work together
to find a way to make it work,
talking to them before they're in moments of truth,
before they've had a child or expecting like,
long before about what do we do to help.
And I think that spirit of allyship
was forever sort of embraced in my mind when I realized
that I wasn't doing it, like I thought I was and I wasn't
and it really changed the way I've thought about it
for that job doing New York but of course,
for the roles that I've had since then
where I've had a chance to try to help make that happen
at an even bigger scale.
Do you recall a time when you felt excluded,
like how does it maybe speaking personally?
-: Yeah, I mean, honestly I remember a few times
but one that really stands out to me
is very very early in my career when I was still an engineer
and working in a very male dominated team
actually in a new city in another country.
And I remember feeling distinctly every day
that my teammates didn't really feel I deserve to be there
or that I could do the job.
And honestly as I reflect back,
nobody went even an inch out of their way
to show me the ropes or welcome me to the team or help me.
And I remember feeling very, very isolated
and I believe actually that,
that took a lot of the joy of the job away from me
and honestly when I think back on it
I found it quite difficult to be at my best
in that type of environment.
So it really did have an impact
to feel excluded in that way.
-: You know it's funny.
I also started as an engineer
and I was in the world of guys that were much older than me
and it was tough cause you felt like,
really they called me the kid, that was what they call me.
They call me the kid
and they gave me a lot of grief all the time.
But it's also true that still at the end of the day,
my class in the firm I joined, I won't name it
and they've dramatically changed since then,
but there were some women engineers
that joined at that exact same time
and it was clear that as much grief as I felt I was getting,
for being the young guy in the room,
that they were, it was even harder for them
and it's hard to watch that
and that was also a learning experience
but I think there's times that everybody feels excluded,
but sometimes we need to recognize
however hard it feels for us,
you gotta put yourself in someone else's shoes too
and it can feel even harder.
-: Well, Rich your story of your journey, if you will,
of allyship really resonates to me,
because I think that's one of the key things that we found,
allyship is really a journey.
You need to continue learning,
you need to be open to learning and you up your game,
you up your awareness, you up your moves, if you will,
to be a better ally.
So and I think we should all
make sure that we're open to that journey
and ready to take it.
-: I couldn't agree more and by the way,
I will just say someone's now 30 years into my BCG career.
This journey doesn't stop.
Like every year I think I find things
that I think I could have done better or situations,
you try to handle it well
but you wonder if you could do a better job.
So the moment we think we've got it all figured out
we're falling behind and that's on many topics
but it is really true on this topic.
And I'm really proud of the allyship work
that you've been spearheading and our team's been doing.
It's true to our purpose and values.
We're on our own journey to foster a culture
of inclusivity and allyship across our women,
LGBTQ, plus Black and Latinx communities.
But we've recently been amplifying those efforts
by focusing on enabling all 20,000 colleagues
around the world to be allies
and to think about how we can make a difference
in the world and we just keep learning
that when we show commitment to allyship culture
from the top, more employees step up in that.
-: I totally agree Rich and honestly, I mean,
I've been at BCG a long time too
and it's been really great to see our progress
and our own journey.
We've been focused on DE and I for close to 20 years
and over that time we've moved from,
really initial early thinking about
women mobilizing to support other women
to a point today where all leaders at BCG male and female
view being inclusive as a leader
as part of their responsibility,
to be enabling and championing women
and creating an inclusive environment
for all our colleagues at BCG
and it's been great to see that progress in that journey.
And I'm sure it's gonna progress
and I'm sure we're gonna learn more
and I'm sure there are still opportunities
for us to continue to up our game.
I think even just in the last 12 months
which we've taken that to a little bit of a next level,
creating more formal ways for all employees to learn more
and become active allies themselves.
We've created ally networks for our women,
our Black and Latinx colleagues and our pride networks
and we've tried to put really great educational content
and engagement opportunities
for all our staff to learn more.
-: You know language really matters
and I think even the way we've been able to take
that word allyship and bring it to life and provide examples
and talk about what it means and show role models
at all levels in the firm,
from very young colleagues to very, very senior ones
who play that, I think it brings it home.
It gives people some inspiration of what they can do
to make a difference.
I just wanna close our conversation
with just a personal question.
So we're celebrating International Women's Day,
the theme this year is choose to challenge.
BCG is both celebrating colleagues who are raising the bar
in dismantling barriers for women
and now many are making pledges
to challenge the status quo in various ways.
So what do you hope our community listening to this
will take away from this theme
and is there anything that you've personally committed to?
-: It's a great theme, isn't it?
I really like it.
What it means is, we can all of us,
every single one of us choose to challenge
and call out gender bias and inequality
and we can find those moments to actually make a difference.
So I hope that our community will be inspired
to do just that and make that choice
to really challenge and call out gender bias.
Me personally, my commitment to choose to challenge
is to continue to play a very, very active role
in the intense work we are doing right now
to systematically review all of our people processes,
from recruitment to integrating new team members
to developing those team members, the whole review
and promotion process and ask the hard questions
of where might those processes have some bias?
How can we strip those out?
And I think we have to have the guts and the resolve
to really redesign those processes.
So that's my personal commitment, Rich, how about yours?
-: I think mine is to continually reinforce our team
that we're on a journey and you can take a lot of pride
on the one hand about how far we've come,
celebrate women leaders,
celebrate the the hiring percentages that have gone up
and really feel good about that
and at the same time acknowledge
what we can do to get better.
And that happens in many ways,
some very small and some bigger.
I think this concept of allyship
and how we really promote that so that every BCGer
feels like they can make a positive difference
in the lives of someone else
and by building a more diverse community
we build a better and stronger community.
I think obviously I have this privileged platform
to be able to stress that and do it in multiple ways
and to keep trying to use that platform
as ambitiously as I can as what I take away
and I agree this year's theme is a particularly good one
to reinforce that.
So that's all the time we have Nan.
Thank you so much, well, for joining me
and for the leadership you've shown over many, many years
and in the work that we've talked about today.
I really encourage everyone watching to pause today,
consider how you can make meaningful choices
to support and celebrate the achievements of women today
and always, thanks everyone.
-: Thank you.
(upbeat music)