Women have made undeniable strides toward workplace equality in recent years. But while they account for 56% of college students and 48% of entry-level positions, they still make up just 23% of the C-suite. It would seem that for every step forward, much of corporate America has lagged behind. Thankfully, some organizations are doing better to keep pace.

Gallery: America’s 10 Best Employers For Women 2019

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What shouldn’t come as a surprise, though, are the employers that make up the ranking’s upper echelon, among them Hallmark Cards, No. 4, and Principal Financial Group, No. 5—the No. 2 and No. 1 companies on the inaugural list last year—and The Estée Lauder Companies, which climbed 21 spots to claim the coveted No. 1 position. It appears that the beauty brand has taken care to cultivate a culture that supports female employees: 84% of its workforce, 53% of its vice president-and-above executives and 43% of its board of directors are women. But the attention The Estée Lauder Companies has paid to ensuring equity among its employees isn’t new, born of movements as #MeToo and Time’s Up—it has been core to the company since its namesake founder started peddling a line of four skincare products in 1946. “We were founded by a woman—this is just a natural part of our DNA,” says Alexandra Trower, executive vice president of global communications at The Estée Lauder Companies. “One of the benefits of being at a family company is family values underpin everything we do . . . [which] brings a sense of accountability and doing the right thing to a really different level.”

As the cost of childcare in America has increased, the percentage of working-age women in the workforce has decreased from an all-time high of 60% in 1999 to 57.1% today and a projected 55.4% by 2024. The Estée Lauder Companies wants for its female employees what Estée Lauder had for herself—the choice to have both a family and a career—and is attempting to lay the groundwork for that through its benefits, which include 20 weeks of paid parental leave for those who adopt or foster children, six weeks of flexible hours for the back-to-work transition, $10,000 for adoption assistance and $20,000 a year for fertility treatments. “Think about young women today wanting to have great careers and deciding that they want to have children on their own time. All the stars and moons may not align,” Trower says. And not to be forgotten, of course, are the products. “I can’t tell you how much fun it is when you’re working on an annual report and a bag of the most fabulous new Jo Malone gets delivered to the office,” she says. “It reminds us of the magic of our industry, how we’re really helping women to feel their very best.”

No matter how enticing the prospect of a free bottle of Lime Basil & Mandarin Cologne may be, it’s the countless career trajectories and stretch assignments with more than 30 brands—including Clinique, Darphin and MAC—around the world, in a business that did nearly $14 billion in sales last year, that keeps The Estée Lauder Companies’ women workers engaged. “We’re very focused on and very deliberate about making sure that women in particular have strong career paths and the option to go between brands, regions and functions,” says Trower, who recently helped one member of her team transfer between communications offices in New York and Paris, while another moved to the marketing side in Hong Kong. “You could spend, like so many women have, your entire career here but be in a huge variety of different areas.”

And for those who’d prefer to stay stateside, there are still plenty of opportunities for professional growth, most notably through The Estée Lauder Companies’ reverse-mentoring program. Established by CEO Fabrizio Freida in an effort to encourage learning and development for employees at all levels, the initiative has resulted in some big wins. Not only has it enabled executives at the 73-year-old business to gain insight into what young consumers want, an understanding which has led to the acquisitions of Millennial-centric beauty brands as Becca, Smashbox and Too Faced, but it’s given Millennial and Gen Z employees, who make up 65% of the employer’s workforce, sponsors. “A sponsor is someone who is going to say, ‘I think Maddie is the perfect person for this job and I’ll tell you why and I’m going to help her get there,’” Trower says. “More and more young women are really seeking and treasuring that.”

Trower, who has mentored four women since joining The Estée Lauder Companies in 2008, has benefited from a bit of mentorship herself. “My first year was really hard,” she admits. She came to the beauty business after more than two decades in financial services, and “stepped in a lot of mud puddles. I was learning the difference between a cream and a serum.” Challenging as that may have been, it was nothing that advice and encouragement from her new colleagues couldn’t help, and today, she tries to pay it forward so that all new employees can reap the rewards the employer has to offer. “It’s this incredibly complex, intellectually stimulating organization that just makes people want to be here,” she says. “People feel they are playing an important part in creating the next century of The Estée Lauder Companies” 

For the full list of America’s best employers for women, click here.

Methodology

To compile the list, Statista surveyed 60,000 Americans, including 40,000 women, working for businesses with at least 1,000 employees. All the surveys were anonymous, allowing participants to openly share their opinions. Respondents were first asked to rate their organizations on criteria such as working conditions, diversity and how likely they’d be to recommend their employer to others. These responses were reviewed for potential gender gaps. So if women, for example, rated an organization poorly on diversity, but men rated it highly, Statista would take that into account and adjust the company’s score accordingly. Statista then asked female respondents to rate their employers on factors such as parental leave, discrimination and pay equity. These respondents were also asked to nominate organizations in industries outside their own. The final list ranks the 300 employers that both received the most recommendations and boast the most gender diverse boards and executive ranks.