Women Start Nearly 2,000 Businesses a Day

In its eighth annual State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, American Express found that women-owned businesses now employ 9.2 million people and generate $1.8 trillion in revenue.  Further, women started new businesses at the rate of 1,821 a day between 2017 and 2018.

Businesses started by women that generated revenues of more than $1 million a year increased 46 percent in the last 11 years, compared to a 12 percent increase for all businesses, per AMEX.

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How to Reward and Recognize Your Employees in Meaningful Ways

Are you honest with your employees when it comes to performance review time?  Here are four ways you can show your employees that you appreciate them—even if you can’t offer a raise or promotion.

1. Get candid with your direct reports
2. Ask questions
3. Recognize them in a way that resonates
4. Advocate for your employees

Read more about how to motivate your star employees here.

Success On Their Own Terms

Whether they're embracing entrepreneurship because of a grand vision or to have greater control over their lives, women business owners still face obstacles. Yet, when it comes to economic impact, women are all business.

They are the primary or sole breadwinner in 40 percent of U.S. households with children, according to the Pew Research Center.[i] And they're increasingly striking out on their own. Roughly 36 percent of all businesses are women-owned (51 percent or more), and another 9 percent are equally owned by women and men, according to U.S. Census data.

Read more about how women business owners overcame obstacles to success on their own terms.

Why Collaborative Work Looks Different Depending on a Variety of Factors

As Renee Cullinan, chief executive officer and co-founder of Stop Meeting Like This, says in the Harvard Business Review: "In any organization, people apply unspoken rules and understood norms to get collective work done — in other words, they collaborate."

The value people place on relationships is a strong influencing factor on whether and how they collaborate. Relationship-heavy cultures are marked by inclusion, personal connection, and relationship-based decision making. They tend to be friendly, warm places to work. 

Read more how in collaborative work cultures, women carry more of the weight.