“When you get to the power of voice, you have to be brave and you have to be that person that will speak up and say this isn’t right, but I want to be a part of the solution,” said Eileen Martin, the Global Director of Inclusion at EMD Serono, the U.S. division’s biopharmaceutical arm, of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. She spoke at a recent Wilson Center event on the intersections between women’s health, leadership, and economic prosperity. This edition of Friday Podcasts is led by Sarah B. Barnes, Project Director of the Maternal Health Initiative at the Wilson Center. 

Healthy Women, Healthy Economies

When women are healthy, everyone benefits. When women are supported to fully contribute to national economies, again, everyone benefits. Often, the barriers women face toward economic participation are preventable with smart policies. The Healthy Women, Healthy Economies (HWHE) toolkit provides those policies and workplace strategies for hiring entities like governments, companies, and NGOs to encourage, integrate, and retain women in the workplace.

“Policy is key”, said Martin. Merck-Brazil used the policy toolkit to find both external and internal successes around improved women’s health and participation in the workforce. Internally, Merck-Brazil increased the number of women in leadership positions from 30 percent to 43 percent over a two year period. Externally, the toolkit aided the company in their work to bring awareness to the significance of colorectal cancer and to influence government and insurance policies to include recognition of and services for colorectal cancer, where previously only breast and cervical cancer were included.  

The Balancing Act and Sponsorship

“Let’s forget about 9 to 5,” said Martin. Women tend to have a double and triple burden on a day-to-day basis that inhibits a normal work schedule and has women providing unpaid work way beyond a 40 hour work week. When employers implement policies and strategies to hire, maintain, and promote women in the workforce, a woman’s juggling act of balancing career, family, and health is relieved. “Let’s leverage technology and let’s really redefine what a ‘9 to 5’ day actually looks like.”

Martin stated that there is a lack of sponsorship for women in the workforce to support their progression. “Women tend to be over-mentored and under-sponsored,” she said and went on to explain, that while a mentor can really cheer on employees and be an advocate, they don’t have the political or the social capital to pull someone forward in the organization. A sponsor has to be somebody who can “put their political and social capital on the table and pound their fists” to demand that women in the workplace are given their rightful seat at the table.