Closing The Gender Gap Is Best For Business: Women Make Businesses More Successful

Hey science, thanks for confirming what we already knew!

We certainly don't need another reason confirming women should be in more senior-level positions, or make as much money as their male counterparts.

But for all those who clearly need more convincing, a recently-released report from the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, a nonprofit organization that attempts to help women in technology-related jobs, has determined that businesses with more female employees and leaders overwhelmingly outperform those that don't.

The report, Innovation By Design: The Case for Investing in Women, is the first of its kind to summarize studies across a number of different disciplines that have all essentially concluded the same thing: When companies include women in decision-making capacities, they thrive.

Of all of the summarized study findings, a few particularly stand out as proving the importance of having women fully incorporated into business' processes:

-"An economist from Carnegie Mellon found that teams that included at least one female member had a collectively higher IQ than teams that had just men."

-"When Fortune 500 companies had at least three female directors, several key factors increased: The return on invested capital jumped over 66 percent, return on sales went up 42 percent, and return on equity increased by 53 percent."

-"Studies in 17 different countries in all different industries found that across the board, having a larger number of women on a team accounts for greater psychological safety, team confidence, group experimentation, and team efficiency."

Women workers contribute to the diversity in a workplace, which lends itself to more creative products and solutions, and therefore better business results.

via Mashable, Photo credit: Getty Images