With gender pay gap reporting on the horizon, it’s time for organisations to really examine whether they’re doing the best they can for female employees. Dawn Leane outlines 10 things every business can do to help women in the workplace.
According to recent research, the advancement of women in the workplace has, at best, stalled. So, what can organisations do to get back on track?
1. Start with the culture
Many organisations over-engineer initiatives to improve gender balance. This often manifests as policies and procedures, which research shows can be counter-productive and have a negative impact.
Organisations should focus less on control and more on creating environments that are genuinely egalitarian. This is achieved by modelling appropriate behaviours and embedding good practice.
2. Ask questions
Don’t assume you know why women are not advancing in your organisation. Issues can be specific to the culture of individual workplaces or teams. Without insight, you could spend a lot of time and money developing solutions to the wrong problems.
Independent interviews with current and former employees can help build an objective picture of the challenges unique to your business.
3. Support fathers
All fathers are entitled to paternity and parental leave. However, only a third took paternity leave last year.
Research suggests that men and women believe fathers don’t take their full entitlement because parental leave is still viewed as the domain of women. Yet, fathers are no less interested and engaged in their children’s lives.
Encouraging fathers to take leave might not do much for your individual organisation, but this is a wider issue for business and society and will contribute to higher staff retention and satisfaction.
4. Don’t outsource management responsibility
A survey by the 30% Club found that employees spend increasingly less time with their manager discussing their personal development as they progress through the organisation. Opportunities for career-relevant advice and feedback are outsourced to mentors or coaches.
Women at this stage of their career receive less advice from their manager than men by a ratio of four to one. While mentors and coaches have a role, it is the relationship with their manager that is pivotal to women’s development.
5. Provide access to gender-specific training
This can be a divisive topic, but research shows that women benefit enormously from gender-specific training. The chance to discuss common experiences, like gender bias or personal leadership challenges, is key.
However, it is important to ensure that management doesn’t wipe their hands after offering this kind of training. Other types of development opportunities should also be offered to women.
6. Create dress rehearsals
Developing leadership abilities takes practice and requires learning from mistakes. With low levels of women in senior roles, those who do succeed have increased visibility.
Organisations can create space for women to enhance their leadership skills without being subject to undue scrutiny.
Opportunities such as leading projects or deputising for their managers, when coupled with appropriate feedback, can help to provide such a ‘safe’ space.
7. Reduce the opportunity for unconscious bias
In organisations, even the smallest amount of bias can have significant consequences.
Unconscious bias is prevalent in both women and men. The Implicit Bias Test developed at Harvard University offers incredible personal insight.
Training for unconscious bias has proven to be largely ineffective. Until our conditioning changes, the solution is to limit the opportunity for such bias to occur. For example, blind, systematic processes for reviewing job applications will help to end such bias.
8. Monitor where women are in your talent pipeline
The McKinsey Women in the Workplace reports advise that, for women, inequality starts at the very first promotion; entry-level women are 18 percent less likely to be promoted than their male peers. This has a dramatic effect on the pipeline as a whole.
Organisations should be attuned to this, as it is easier to correct imbalance at earlier stages in the pipeline.
9. Accept that careers are marathons, not sprints
Organisations often place too much emphasis on rapid advancement, leading people to burn out and leave, particularly when they have competing demands outside work.
Reframing career development as a long-term goal allows both women and men to increase and to slow their pace as appropriate to their circumstances without being written off.
10. Focus on output not presenteeism
If accountability and results are what matter, show this through flexible working
arrangements.
Hybrid working has been both a blessing and a curse to women in the workplace. Flexibility is necessary to ensure women continue to be productive and successful members of the team.
Dawn Leane is the Founder of Leane Empower.
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