Women drive your business – help keep them

Running a successful business requires the right people. And those “right people” just might be women.

Businesses with better representation of women are going further.¹ Having more women in the workplace is related to positive employee engagement and retention. Companies with a high percentage of females have cited positive and meaningful organizational culture, including having enjoyable work, a job that fits well with other areas of their life and opportunities to make a difference.²

You might be aware of this phenomenon already, even if you don’t know the specific numbers, 87% of companies say they are highly committed to gender diversity. If you’re among them, you might intuitively understand that diverse teams drive innovation, and that women — and men — who work at companies committed to gender diversity are happier and plan to stick around longer.³

From there, your mission becomes clear: Create a workplace that supports women. Mentoring, a pipeline to management and fair pay is part of that. Employee benefits, particularly health care, are too.

Women face different challenges in the workforce

Women are likelier than men to have health insurance.⁴ But they’re also likelier to avoid health care because of cost — understandable, given that women in their 20s, 30s and early 40s spend more on health care than their male counterparts.⁵ And it’s not just their own health care that they’re concerned about: More than 40% of mothers are the family breadwinners, placing the burden of family health care on their shoulders.⁶

The recent pandemic saw women, particularly women of color, leaving the workforce in shocking numbers.⁷ A good portion of this job loss came from businesses eliminating positions — but not all. More than 2 million women have dropped out of the workforce because of the pandemic,⁸ and senior-level female executives were 1.5 times more likely than their male peers to consider reducing hours or leaving the workforce altogether because of Covid-19.³

Retain your female talent with the employee benefits women want

Supplemental coverage helps all your employees and puts money in the pockets of those who need it the most — which is likelier to be women. But your employees, regardless of gender, aren’t the only ones who come out ahead when you go above and beyond in benefits. Your business does too. More than 80% of employers say that offering supplemental insurance helps them recruit, and 88% say that it helps them retain the people who are already there.⁹ That talent retention is crucial for cultivating women who can help your organization fix the “broken rung” of talent that keeps women in entry-level positions instead of promoting them.³

Everyone wants good benefits, of course. But women are more likely than men to value health, dental and vision insurance,¹⁰ making Aflac’s supplemental insurance particularly attractive.

No benefits package can compensate for larger social inequities that put women in a precarious financial situation. But as we work toward true equity, robust benefits can support the women who matter most to your business.

Aflac works for women

The business profitability fueled by diversity applies to your partnerships too. When you work with Aflac, you work with a carrier that values diversity. We’re in the top 5% of companies with more than 10,000 employees for gender and racial diversity,¹¹ and 66% of our U.S. employees are women.¹²

Are you ready to help increase retention among your female employees? Contact your Aflac benefits advisor or visit Aflac.com/business.