How Organizations Can Remove Career Development Barriers for Women

Only 36% of women feel empowered to perform their best at work, according to the 2025 U.S. Women Professionals in the Modern Workplace report by HiBob, a human capital management platform company. Conducted in December 2024, the study surveyed 2,000 full-time professionals (51% women, 49% men) working in hybrid or in-office environments.

The report also found:

Less than 10% of women have a formal mentor at work, compared to 15% of men.
38% of women say their value is recognized through daily work visibility, while men feel valued through corporate culture (47%) and values (51%).
Only 28% of women feel their corporate culture actively supports them.

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“Women face several barriers to career growth, including structural, cultural and systemic challenges,” said Ruth Thomas, a pay equity strategist at Payscale. “A key factor is vertical segregation, where men are more commonly found in higher-level positions, while women remain in lower grades. This happens due to bias in recruitment, promotion and performance assessments. While some attribute the disparity of career progression to women’s workplace choices, this perspective overlooks the systemic constraints that shape those decisions.”

More research, from the International Labour Organization, showed the overall global labor force participation rate for women remains low at just under 47%, compared with 72% for men.

Worldwide, women also lag behind men in board representation, according to a JP Morgan Chase study, which noted women hold only 10% of CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies. (In the U.S., women hold approximately 31% of board seats at S&P 500 companies.) Deloitte research showed that although the number of female board members has risen globally since 2022, it is unlikely that gender parity on boards will be reached before 2038.

With fewer women in the workplace and placed in leadership roles, career development gaps are likely to occur for female employees. Total rewards professionals have an opportunity to remove barriers and provide these workers support, such as mentorships and upskilling, to aid in their career growth and success.

Understanding the Roadblocks

Deloitte’s Women @ Work 2024: A Global Outlook report, a survey of 5,000 women in workplaces across 10 countries, found less than half of polled women felt supported by their employer to balance their work responsibilities with commitments outside their job. In fact, the report revealed 95% of women believed that requesting or taking advantage of flexible work opportunities would negatively affect their career progression.

“Many women may feel the responsibility to prioritize their home and children, which can limit the time and energy they have to devote to their careers,” said Heather Simmons, the director of operations at Thrive HR Consulting. “This balance between nurturing a family and advancing professionally can create tension and may cause some women to scale back their career aspirations.”

The motherhood penalty is indeed a barrier, said Liz Lyons, an associate professor with the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego.

“This [penalty] is larger in more developed countries,” she said. “This is consistent with evidence that women continue to spend more time than men on home responsibilities like child rearing and household chores.”

Thomas added the “choice” of women to prioritize childcare is often framed as a personal one; however, she said the stark reality is that the absence of paid shared parental leave severely limits both men and women to equitably cover caregiving responsibilities, effectively narrowing the scope of “choice” available to women.

While the motherhood penalty explains quite a bit of the gender gap, Lyons said it doesn’t explain all of it. She noted other possible explanations may include bias in hiring and promotion process and reward systems (for example, rewarding male-typical behaviors over female ones, or interpreting ideas spoken in male voices as more valuable than similar ones spoken in female voices) and differences in the types of jobs males and females pursue.

According to Simmons, a woman’s slow career progression can be due to a mix of structural, organizational and societal factors, but those factors are not inherently based on discrimination — but rather on broader workplace dynamics and cultural expectations.

Some of those key influences, she said, may include:

Industry representation and career pathways. Some industries historically have had fewer women in leadership roles (e.g., manufacturing and finance), creating a smaller pipeline of candidates for top positions. Fields with a higher concentration of women (e.g., education and healthcare) may have fewer hierarchical promotion opportunities compared to male-dominated industries.
Leadership perception and promotion criteria. Leadership qualities have traditionally been associated with traits such as assertiveness and risk-taking, which are often encouraged more in men than in women. In some cases, promotion decisions are based on subjective assessments of “cultural fit” rather than purely on performance, affecting advancement opportunities.
Mentorship and sponsorship differences. Women often have fewer high-level mentors or sponsors advocating for their career progression, which can impact their visibility and access to opportunities.
Networking and informal career advancement. Leadership tracks sometimes involve informal networking, social events or after-hours activities where women may be underrepresented. Workplace cultures that emphasize informal sponsorship can create unintentional disparities in promotion opportunities.
Promotions based on performance vs. potential. Studies suggest that men are often promoted based on their potential, while women are promoted based on past performance, leading to slower advancement.
Personal career preferences. Some individuals, regardless of gender, may prioritize job satisfaction, stability or work-life balance over rapid promotions, leading to fewer women in leadership by choice rather than exclusion.

Lower Promotion Rates

Women are around 13% less likely to be promoted than men, according to research from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. Additionally, only 22% of the women surveyed in the HiBob report stated they received a promotion compared to 34% of the men.

When there are promotion gaps, they can contribute to pay disparities, resulting in wage stagnation for women and a progressive widening of the gender pay gap over time, Payscale’s Thomas said.

“Women who do make it to the top rungs of the workplace still make less than their elevated male counterparts,” Thomas said.

Payscale’s Gender Pay Gap Report showed women at the executive level made 94 cents to every dollar a man made, even when the same job characteristics were considered. In the uncontrolled group, women executives made 72 cents to every dollar a male executive made.

The report also found that, in general, women were more likely to stay in individual contributor (an employee without managerial responsibilities) roles longer than men.

“We looked at the intersection of job level and age and job level and race, and we found that women are more likely to stagnate in their careers across the board,” Thomas said. “Women start out with controlled pay equity relative to white men at the individual contributor level, but as they progress up the corporate ladder, the gap widens. The financial impact extends beyond just pay gaps as slower career and wage growth can lead to a cumulative loss in earnings, meaning women retire with less wealth, impacting their financial security and quality of life in retirement.”

To effectively close those gaps, Thomas said employers should implement strategies focused on equity to reduce bias and ensure a consistent approach in the promotion process:

Establish a standardized promotion process that minimizes bias by ensuring clear criteria and diverse decision-making panels.
Support flexible work policies like providing parental leave, flexible schedules and return-to-work programs that can help women maintain career momentum.
Prioritize equity in career growth to cultivate a more inclusive workplace and also drive better business outcomes.

Clearing the Path

As more organizations embrace flexible return-to-work policies, career development for women can become more adaptable and sustainable, Simmons said.

“The rise of flexible work options is shifting workplace culture, making career breaks and non-linear career paths more acceptable for both men and women,” she said.

For example, offering return-to-work programs can help women re-enter the workforce by providing training, mentorship and networking opportunities, Simmons said.

But one possible downside of remote and hybrid work for women is access to mentorships, Lyons said. One study found that office closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic reduced access to mentorship for early career females and reduced the likelihood that later-career females mentored because proximity to colleagues increases the likelihood of mentorship.

“The larger negative effect … appears to be women [are] more comfortable asking for help in person than remotely,” Lyons said. “This suggests an important role for proactivity among managers when female workers in particular are working off-site.”

She added providing incentives such as public recognition and incorporating mentorship activities into bonus and promotion decisions can increase the likelihood that female employees receive mentorships and that female mentors aren’t disproportionately burdened relative to male mentors.

Employers also can close systemic gaps in mentorship and upskilling between men and women by implementing structured, inclusive and data-driven initiatives, Simmons said.

According to Simmons, key strategies may include:

Formal mentorship programs. Create structured programs that pair women with mentors in leadership positions to provide guidance and career support.
Sponsorship initiatives. Encourage senior leaders to actively sponsor high-potential women by advocating for their promotions and career opportunities.
Inclusive networking opportunities. Ensure that mentorship and networking events are accessible and welcoming to all employees, reducing reliance on informal networks that may exclude women.
Targeted leadership development programs. Offer leadership training tailored to underrepresented employees, equipping them with skills needed for advancement.
Continuous learning opportunities. Provide access to technical, business and leadership courses, ensuring that both men and women receive equal learning resources.
Cross-functional training. Enable employees to gain experience in different departments, broadening their career growth opportunities.
Bias training for leaders and mentors. Educate managers and mentors on unconscious bias to ensure fair and objective mentorship.
Equitable talent identification. Use data-driven performance assessments rather than subjective evaluations to identify employees for mentorship and upskilling programs.
Flexible learning options. Offer online courses, mentorship meetings outside of traditional hours and part-time training programs to accommodate diverse schedules.
Parental leave and return-to-work upskilling. Provide career re-entry programs and refresher training for employees returning from extended leave.
Track and measure progress. Regularly analyze participation rates in mentorship and upskilling programs by gender to ensure equitable access and collect insights from employees to improve programs and address gaps effectively.

“By taking these steps, employers can bridge mentorship and upskilling gaps, creating a more inclusive workplace where career growth is based on talent, effort and opportunity rather than systemic barriers,” Simmons said.

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