Gender intelligent companies have an advantage over those who aren’t

Many companies around the world, see improving gender balance in their workforce, as a part of their social responsibility. Some, however, are realizing that women bring in the diversity and skills that are imperative to a company’s growth.

NBC News reports Barbara Annis and Keith Merron; who work with companies to improve gender balance, discussing how companies having an equal number of women employees have an advantage over those that don’t.

According to Merron, now a huge percentage of women are graduating from colleges and universities, and starting their own ventures. They also form a larger part of the consumer base as in the US alone, women spend $5 trillion annually, according to Annis.

Annis also believes that women employees and entrepreneurs are better readers of the current complex consumer base and not having them on board can be a disadvantage. “Companies that are changing the way they orient are now actually having the advantage; the companies that don’t may actually be at a disadvantage. Because when you interact with a woman as if you’re interacting with a man, and she is thinking differently, you actually hurt your cause”; Annis told NBC News.

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Merron, on the other hand, feels, “ …when you have a dominant male model is that you narrow the focus, and when you have both men and women working together you have a far greater breadth of thinking and greater breadth of decision-making.” Annis adds that when companies have gender intelligent teams, they are more successful in creating a diverse decision making board that ultimately benefits the company.

Apart from this, women are also good at selling, and measuring them with a male model is unfair. Women work in a different but an equally successful way and are also good at getting a diverse client base.

ORIGINAL SOURCE: NBC News

http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/maria-shriver/how-women-give-business-competitive-edge-n208566