“What are the workplace issues that women have to face and what are the solutions to change the issues?” (Part 2)
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Women still have difficulties moving up in the workplace and in many other areas of life. There are several significant difficulties that are vital for women wanting to advance in business. Leaders who are prepared to be inventive and provide space at the table for women to flourish at work must also take a few specific actions.
Flexible work arrangements
For many women, working flexibly presents challenges. Employees who have flexible work arrangements (FWAs) can better balance their professional and personal responsibilities by controlling how, where, and when they work. Flexible work schedules, which were once considered an employee perk or a concession for carers (often women), are now recognized as a powerful tool for employers to attract top talent and a cost-cutting strategy to lower absenteeism, turnover, and productivity.
Solutions:
Change their attention from time spent at a desk to productivity and results.
Locate managers who are already flexible in order to learn what works and what doesn’t.
Encourage your own team to set an example and think about using FWAs.
Access to hot jobs
Why don’t women have the same opportunities as males to fill career-making positions? Not all positions offer the same level of career progression, and not all leadership prospects are made equal. Women are still provided fewer of the high-profile, pivotal positions, and global opportunities (what we refer to as “hot jobs”) that are necessary to rise to the top echelons of leadership today.
Solutions:
Make a conscious effort to assist female coworkers.
Set an example of inclusive leadership.
Allow workers to bargain over their responsibilities.
Role Models
There aren’t many notable female role models in the workplace. What you cannot see, you cannot be. According to studies, nearly two-thirds of women cited the absence of senior or outwardly successful female role models as a major barrier to their professional advancement.
Solutions:
Make a conscious effort to add women who possess exceptional qualifications to your executive team, business board, C-suite, and/or CEO role.
Sponsorship
Leaders need to do more to advocate for highly skilled women by speaking out on their behalf. In any workplace culture, building relationships is essential for individuals to acquire high-profile jobs, promotions, and connections. To ensure career growth and professional development, sponsors—advocates in positions of authority who consciously use their influence to help others advance—are crucial for women. We are aware that women have a large network of mentors, but they also want sponsors who will raise their profile, celebrate their achievements in private, and nominate them for challenging positions.
Solutions:
Anyone, especially men who are capable of taking multiple strong actions, can recognize sponsorship.
Listen to your female coworkers with respect and humility; this will make them feel more included.
Look at the group of coworkers who are your “go-to” resources; are they diverse? Are you actively and broadly seeking talent? Do women participate in the more casual activities and networking that are crucial for advancement?
Provide “air cover” to protect and back the creative ideas of your female coworkers.
Non-inclusive workspaces
Women frequently feel overlooked or disregarded. Women (or any employee) experience exclusion when they feel like outsiders in the workplace due to their distinctive features or differences (such as gender, race/ethnicity, country, age, religion, or sexual orientation). Organizations pay a high price for exclusion in the form of decreased job satisfaction, decreased work effort, less employee voice, and increased desire to leave. An inclusive company must have a supportive culture that fully involves all workers.
Solutions:
Establish ground rules for conversations and hold yourself and your team accountable for adhering to them.
Create a common vocabulary and understanding of inclusion and exclusion.
Double-bind
Gender prejudices frequently impair women’s leadership potential. Women leaders have a number of challenges as a result of the preconception that men “take control” while women “take care.” Women, for instance, are perceived as being either too hard or too soft, never quite right. Women in leadership roles are regarded as competent or popular, but not both. Men may also be perceived as possessing the “default” style when it comes to their capacity for effective leadership, which means women must continuously demonstrate their own leadership abilities throughout each day. Women put in twice as much labor as males do as a result of this effort.
Solutions:
Don’t discount the abilities of female leaders because of outdated gender norms.
Reverse the gender of the individual in question to see whether it affects your thinking in order to test your ability to make fair judgments about people.
Introduce staff to colleagues, men included, who are eager to promote the hiring of women as leaders.
To assist staff in understanding the effects of gender stereotyping, provide diversity and inclusion training.
LGBTQ protections
Many LGBT women have “outsider” feelings at work. Misperceptions and discriminatory practices might make LGBT women feel like the “other” at work, which may influence them to decide to keep their sexual orientation a secret. This might encourage people to grow their distance from interacting with coworkers and prevent them from bringing their complete selves—along with their most creative and engaged selves—to the workplace. They are ultimately separated from the highest power structures as a result of this.
Solutions:
Use inclusive leadership techniques.
Be a visible ally by taking action so that LGBT women and others will know they can turn to you and rely on you.
Empowerment, accountability, courage, and humility, or EACH behaviour, are the keys to intentional leadership.
To make LGBT women (and other employees) feel more included and creative, ensure their psychological safety at work.
Other organisations that are dedicated to LGBT inclusion can be used as a benchmark.
Being talked over
Women are all too familiar with this scenario: During a meeting, you begin to make a point only to be interrupted halfway through, talked over, and then have your suggestion given back to you and presented as the offender’s idea. At first glance, this might not seem like a major deal because everyone runs into problems occasionally. But the issue here is that women routinely interrupt others when they are speaking, which results from the perception that women are less powerful and authoritative. Cultural and gendered cues that influence people’s perceptions of social involvement frequently result in this dynamic.
Conclusion
There is still a long way to go before we can conclude that there is true equality in the workplace, even though the playing field may be considerably more level than it was a few decades ago (and beyond). Indeed, many of these concerns are much more subtle, making them easier to ignore and belittle by those who think gender equality has been accomplished. Governmental legislation, corporate diversity initiatives, and individual action are only a few examples of what can be done. We can continue to clear the way for future generations and establish environments that are safe for them to succeed by raising awareness of these concerns and educating others about them.