GM General Motors Company

By Lauren Weber and Rachel Louise Ensign 

Even where a commitment to gender parity exists, companies must be more proactive to keep women on strong career paths from the lowest to the highest organizational levels, some of the top business leaders in the U.S. said Tuesday.

"We have to get the pipeline going right at the very beginning," Mary Barra, the chief executive of General Motors Co., said at an event in New York hosted by The Wall Street Journal about improving the representation of women in corporate America.

Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook Inc. and one of Silicon Valley's most prominent female executives, noted that greater inclusion offers a dividend for everyone: "Study after study shows us, when you use the full talents of the population, you get better results. This has very big repercussions for economic growth. If we want our companies to outperform and we want economic growth, greater representation from women is the answer."

In a panel discussion, Ms. Barra and James Dimon, the chief executive of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., talked about the need to identify talented women and find good roles for them while also holding male leaders accountable for picking the best people for jobs, from the strongest possible slate of candidates.

Mr. Dimon said hiring more women provides a business advantage. "If I pick my team from everybody and you pick your team from middle-aged white men, I guarantee I'll pick a better team," he said.

He said that the bank's female chief financial officer was the top choice of most of those involved in the decision. He also said he often calls women who leave the bank to figure out why they are departing.

New data from LeanIn.Org, which was founded by Ms. Sandberg, and McKinsey & Co. found that despite modest progress, women are underrepresented at every management level in companies, and the disparity begins early on. While men and women comprise almost equal shares of entry-level workers, men are 30% more likely than female counterparts to be promoted from that stage into a managerial role.

Women account for 19% of C-suite executives, up from 17% last year, according to the study, which is based on responses from 132 companies and 34,000 employees.

The executives said companies must work with employees -- men and women -- who are juggling many priorities, both at work and at home. Ms. Barra talked about turning down a promotion early in her career because it required a relocation and she didn't want to move away from her elderly parents at that time. "Sometimes you have to weigh what's right for you at that time," and workers need to be honest with themselves and their leaders about what they want at various moments in their lives. About a year later, she was offered another opportunity to manage a plant, a key role that prepared her for her job at the helm of GM.

When it comes to improving on the status quo, "it's a lot of little things," Dominic Barton, global managing partner of McKinsey said at the event. "There's no silver bullet. It's about executing it everywhere in the organization and, where it's not happening, intervening."

Write to Lauren Weber at lauren.weber@wsj.com and Rachel Louise Ensign at rachel.ensign@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 27, 2016 23:03 ET (03:03 GMT)

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