Kohl’s among five retailers on Top 75 Companies for Executive Women list
The retail industry didn’t make a great showing on an annual listing of the top companies for women who want to progress through the corporate ranks.
Best Buy, Chico’s FAS, CVS Health, Kohl’s and Target made the 2022 Top 75 Companies for Executive Women list by Seramount, which is part of EAB, a strategic professional services firm dedicated to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. The retailers on the list, with the exception of Target, all have female CEOs.
It was the fourth time that Kohl’s made the list, which celebrates companies that champion women’s advancement, with a focus on succession planning, profit-and-loss roles, gender pay parity, support programs and flexibility programs. (To see the complete Top 75, click here.
Kohl’s noted that its CEO, Michelle Gass, and CFO, Jill Timm, are the rare 1% example of a female CEO-CFO pairing at a Fortune 500 company. Also of Kohl’s management population, approximately 62% identify as female.
“As Kohl’s continues to empower women across the business, we hold ourselves accountable for inspiring empathy and creating an environment of belonging,” said Michelle A. Banks, Kohl’s chief diversity and inclusion officer. “While this has always been part of our culture, our evolved strategy accelerates how we are embedding D&I throughout our business by being intentional about our programs and practices and holding ourselves accountable with measurable goals and results.”
Highlights from the 2022 Top 75 Companies for Executive Women report are below.
• The percentage of women corporate executives increased 1 percentage point to 35% versus 34% in 2021. Female board of directors also increased 2 percentage points to 38% from 36% in 2021.
• Forty-five percent of the top 20% highest-paid employees are women, up from 41% in 2021.
• The percentage of female corporate executives with P&L responsibilities has remained the same year over year at 30%.
• Eighty-nine percent of winning companies hold managers accountable for hiring and advancing women, compared to 81% in 2021. The most prevalent means are through performance reviews and bonus compensation.
• Seventy-five percent of the Top 75 Companies for Executive Women offer formal sponsorship, up from 68% in 2021.
• Seventy-two percent compensate managers for DEI results (including women’s representation), up from 55% in 2021.
“Our 2022 list of Top Companies for Executive Women shows a small increase from 2021 in the number of women in senior leadership roles and in the prevalence of policies to train and advance them,” said Betty Spence, PhD, head, women’s advancement at Seramount. “We are relieved to learn that women continued to move into leadership despite the pandemic, and we hope that in today’s hybrid work environment, women’s advancement will progress at an even faster pace.”
Methodology
The 2022 Top 75 Companies application includes more than 200 questions on pertinent topics, including female representation at all levels, but focuses on the corporate officer and profit-and-loss leadership ranks.
The application, based on 2021 data, tracks and examines how many employees have access to programs and policies that promote advancement of women and how many female employees take advantage of them, as well as how companies train managers to help women advance. To be considered, companies must have a minimum of two women on their boards of directors and at least 500 US employees.