These St. Louis Businesses Excel at Promoting Women

Six St. Louis companies have earned special recognition for their work to retain and promote women — with policies and practices that help female workers to thrive.

Four large firms and two small ones top the list created by the Women's Foundation of Greater St. Louis. "Women in the Workplace: Employment Scorecard" is part of a brand-new initiative that the foundation launched last fall.

The firms are diverse, including a law firm, an accounting firm and two non-profit organizations:

• Anders (anderscpa.com)
  
• Brown Smith Wallace (bswllc.com)
  
• Bryan Cave, LLP (bryancave.com)
  
• The Saint Louis Zoo (stlzoo.org)
  
• DOORWAYS (doorwayshousing.org)
  
• The Missouri Foundation for Health (mffh.org)

To show they had the right stuff, employers voluntarily filled out a 41-question scorecard that covered everything from family leave policies, the percentage of top-earning positions held by women, and whether recruitment specifically targets women and minorities.

"We hope to incentivize employers of various sizes from all sectors to develop and enhance their policies and practices from the perspective of their female employees," said Laura Dierberg Ayers, president of the women's foundation.

No word on how many did so and didn't make the grade, but we suspect there were plenty. In 2015, an in-depth Payscale study found that St. Louis had the worst gender-based pay disparity in the U.S.

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