Women’s Leadership Advancement in most organizations is stuck. A more frequently used term is the “Glass Ceiling.” The business case for advancing women is overwhelming yet real change is incredibly slow. At current rates women will not reach parity in senior leadership or pay equity for decades.

As part of The Governor Corporate Challenge in 2014, a public private partnership to improve gender balance in the workplace, Rockland Trust made a commitment to grow and retain women at all levels. Specifically, Rockland Trust committed to increase the percentage of women among the top 10% of the company’s senior positions.

1. Partnered with Bentley College to create a custom leadership development program for our mid-level and senior female leaders to complement our Gestalt based leadership training. Internal surveys provided directional data that revealed common areas for development; Strategic, Business and Financial Acumen. The target outcomes was to support succession planning efforts by preparing and promoting women leaders.
2. The programs also invited men in in to the conversation to build awareness about gender based unconscious bias and how it plays out in the workplace. The emphasis of this program was to build awareness of the challenges women face in corporate environments and encourage male leaders to actively support the professional development of women at Rockland Trust.
3. Additional follow up programing included a facilitated panel discussion on the topic of Advocating for Future Leaders. This large group forum was also inclusive of men and women. It continued to raise awareness of the challenges women face while getting ahead in their career.

Our continued commitment to advancing women in the workplace is unwavering. Since the completion of the Governor’s Challenge in 2015, we continue to advocate for and support career development with internal programming, training and an Employee Resource Group dedicated to professional women at all levels in the organization called Women of Action.

Commitment to results proved fruitful and the work is still successful today. From 2015-2020 we increased the number of women in senior level officer positions from 22% to 32% and in executive officer positions from 9% to 20%.