Hanna Rosin reports on a few stupidly-obvious solutions Google has implemented in order to hire and retain female employees. For example:
Women recruits were more likely to turn down a job if they only talked to men during the hiring process. So Google made sure every woman candidate also talked to another woman.
The company also hiked maternity leave to five months from three and made it fully paid when they found out that new mothers were leaving the company at twice the rate of other employees.
Rosin spins this sort of behavior as stemming from Google’s data-driven, analytical DNA. But these solutions are common sense; anyone could think of them, if they really wanted to. Want new mothers to stay with the company? Make it easy for them to do so. Want to make female recruits feel comfortable in a male-dominated field? Introduce them to some women in your company.
Businesses themselves are best able to solve the problem of gender inequality and wage gaps, if properly motivated.