Patrick calls on firms to help women thrive

BOSTON – Gov. Deval L. Patrick is calling on companies to work to hire and promote more women and adopt family-friendly policies to help them thrive in the workplace.
Patrick this month announced the Corporate Challenge program, which offers companies that choose to participate the resources of Bentley University’s Center for Women and Enterprise.
In a statement, Patrick noted that women make up nearly half of the Massachusetts workforce, a figure that echoes national trends.
CEOs from at least 14 Massachusetts-based companies have accepted the Corporate Challenge and agreed to participate in the Bentley University program, according to the statement.
The program was an outgrowth of a study released by the Successful Women, Successful Families Task Force. The group is chaired by the Secretary of Labor and Workforce Rachel Kaprielian and composed of a diverse number of advocates, business and government leaders and public policy experts. It has been meeting since March 2014 to develop an action agenda for the Massachusetts to create equal opportunities for all individuals.
Data and studies upon which the Task Force based its work on suggest that employing large numbers of women is good for business. Global studies by Goldman Sachs, Columbia University and others found that companies which employed large numbers of women outperform their competitors in every measure of profitability, according to the statement. •

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