Despite the fact that women now make up half the workforce, they still are no further toward achieving top ranks at the nation’s big businesses than they were last year, or even six years ago, according to the 2011 Catalyst Census report issued Wednesday.

At the Fortune 500 companies, more than a quarter of businesses still had no women in their executive offices in 2010, and 56 had no women directors, the Catalyst report found. It also revealed the sobering fact that only 3 percent of corporate board seats are held by women of color.

Florida is one state that saw some progress in advancing women in its corporate executive suites in the last year. In a separate survey looking at top public companies in 14 regions of the United States, Florida showed the greatest increase in the percentage of executive officers who are women and the greatest decrease in the number of companies without any women executive officers. Florida saw a 5 percent increase, to 11.6 percent, over last year in women executive officers at its 100 largest public companies.

At companies such as Winn-Dixie Stores in Jacksonville, Chico’s FAS in Fort Myers and Cross Country Healthcare in Fort Lauderdale, more than 25 percent of their executive officers are women.

“We are hoping that’s a sign that women here are learning to advocate for themselves,” said Laura Marks, executive director of Women Executive Leadership, which reported the findings of its statewide census as part of an InterOrganization Network (ION) report also issued on Wednesday. ION tracks and advocates women’s progress on a regional level.

“We are also hoping that more women in the executive offices will mean their next move is to ascend to the boardroom,” Marks said.

Much like the national trend, WEL’s 2011 Census found only 9.3 percent of Florida’s directors seats are filled by women and 42 of Florida’s top 100 public companies reported no women on their boards.

Nationally, the Catalyst Census of women atop the Fortune 500 shows change has flatlined. Women held only about 14 percent of executive officer positions, a percentage that hasn’t budged. Men hold a staggering 83.9 percent of corporate board seats, 85.1 percent of executive officer positions, and 92.5 percent of top earner positions.

Deborah Soon, senior vice president strategy at Catalyst, said she holds hope for future improvement from the fact that more companies have women in the pipeline in middle management positions, poised to move into the executive offices if companies embrace their leadership styles and link them with sponsors who guide their advancement.

Clearly, opportunity exists to create more gender diversity in executive offices and on boards at all public companies.

ION discovered that 542 board of directors positions were filled at companies in the 12 ION regions during 2010. However, only 16.1 percent were filled with women. “What that is saying is that opportunities are presenting themselves that are not being taken advantage of,” said Charlotte Laurent-Ottomane, ION president.

Laurent-Ottomane said organizations such as ION and WEL are working to get board chairs, nominating committee chairs, and executive recruiters to adopt a thoughtful process for filling board seats, which includes considering women candidates. “They should start thinking about what it takes to make successful board member and maybe that person doesn’t need to be a sitting CEO or C-suite executive, maybe they can go down a step further.”

Soon points out that gender diversity in the board room leads to gender diversity in the leadership ranks and within the organization. And that leads to better corporate performance.

Previous Catalyst reports found companies with three or more women board directors in four of five years outperformed companies with zero women board directors.

“Companies have much to gain by taking action to advance talented women,” Soon said.