Carolyn Tastad has a message for corporate America: “We haven’t made the progress that we need to.” Tastad, group president for Procter & Gamble (PG) North America and 30-year veteran with the company, spoke with Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi at NRF 2019: Retail’s Big Show, saying that while women’s voices were heard in 2018, companies still have a long way to go in terms of closing the gender gap.
How can companies do better? Tastad says there must be ”intentionality” in the strategy that companies employ when looking at employee benefits such as flexible work hours and family leave. She mentions employee offerings such as parenting leave, “enabling both partners or spouses, regardless of gender, to participate in bringing up a family.”
Tastad hopes companies will more consistently recognize that these types of policies can affect a company’s bottom line in a positive way. Tastad says they can actually enable a company to achieve its goals. “They bring to life what you need in support in the work environment to make it happen,” she says.
For companies to instill change, “we need to expand what our definition of what leadership looks like,” she says, adding that “too often we default to the ‘one-size-fits-all’ prototype, and that’s what has to change.”
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