A New Way To Make The Workplace Work: Women, The Hidden Gem
If you wonder why women are the hidden gem, maybe any one of these arguments will help:
- Not ensuring women access or fully explore their potential at the workplace is a poor business strategy in a context of talent scarcity that, in economic terms, translates into losses of an estimated 160 billion dollars per year in the United States, 29 billion dollars in the UK and 36 billion dollars in Germany due to drops in productivity, and the rise of talent acquisition costs attributed to the longer time needed to fill open positions.
- Several studies have proven that the lack of gender diversity at c-level is considered a competitive roadblock in the long term. Moreover, companies with greater diversity at the management level perform better regarding the return of sale and on invested capital.
If these arguments do not suffice, maybe you might rather listen to Goldman and Sachs, which demonstrated in 2007 that if employment rate parity were achieved, the Eurozone GDP would potentially grow 13%.
This argument is supported by a very recent study from Eurostat in 2016, that showed that by increasing employment parity the world economy would flourish. This article by Punit Renjen depicts the same situation for India, the fastest-growing large economy in the world.
All these facts make women, the hidden gem in every economy in this world.
So, if last century’s milestone and megatrend was women making inroads into the workforce, this century’s milestone will be making sure women have access to the necessary means to fully explore their potential in the economy and in society, so the existing gap between men and women in terms of presence at the workplace, salary, job position, and work stability gaps are overcome. This approach is supported as well by McKinsey on its latest report on Women at the Workplace where it claims that companies need to treat gender diversity like the business priority it is.
But what prevents women from exploring their full potential?
There are many reasons but a significant impediment is an endemic culture built around the roles women and men are supposed to play in society at an essential stage in their lives: parenthood.
In many cultures, women are perceived to be the primary caregivers of the home, children, elderly and sick, whereas men are considered the breadwinners. This cultural assumption permeates society and the workplace alike and has a clear impact on employment rates, being positive for men — dubbed the fatherhood premium — as is associated with the cultural perception of men, as breadwinners, are expected to demonstrate an increased commitment to work. On the other hand, women, perceived as caregivers, are expected to be less committed to their careers and consequently are promoted less frequently, or offered less challenging jobs. That is the motherhood penalty. Facts prove this to be true.
Working mothers earn less than women without children and men regardless of their qualifications, amount of time in the labour force, or productivity level.
This negative impact increases with the number of children and, according to Glass and Riley (1998), at the workplace culture is the variable that best explains the job changes and attrition rate of women having children.
What seems to be evident is that the decision to become a mother is crucial for a woman’s career. Clear evidence of this is the e perceived negative influence of motherhood on women’s careers is the trend of many postponing the decision of becoming a mother for the first time.
Postponing the decision of becoming a mother, corporate culture and social values have a strong influence on leading women to the false dichotomy of choosing between being a devoted mother or a “cold careerist” and face the ensuing sensation of guilt, especially first-time mothers.
The solution to all these macroeconomic problems, and to the challenges faced by women at the workplace in balancing motherhood and career progression, comes down to making sure that life and career do not clash. On that, companies can offer specific services to support women in their transition to motherhood but, more importantly, provide a supportive culture for motherhood where women feel that they are not forced to choose between their career and mothering. This approach has proven to pay off: workplace cultures that were supportive towards motherhood were far more successful in retaining women who were transitioning to motherhood rather than those that only offered certain services. This is especially important in the context of talent scarcity such as we are experiencing today, even in spite of the entry of women into the workforce.
In the following article, I will present an initiative I lead where motherhood became the design vector for women’s career development.
On that initiative I mapped the motherhood journey map at the workplace by natural conception and by adoption, identifying the key touchpoints that impact on women’s career development and wellbeing. Another important output was, as I focused on women’s feelings, perceptions and experiences and not on the industry or company women work at, I was able to develop a set of tools for other companies to implement this same approach and identify which touchpoints of the motherhood journey at the workplace impact the most on women’s career development and wellbeing, why that happens, and what they can do about it.
You can reach me if you want to learn more on how to make sure these hidden gems shine to the max :)
References used
Cabrera, E.F. 2009. Protean organizations: reshaping work and careers to retain female talent. Career Development International, 14(2), pp.186–201.
CEBR. 2014. The economic cost of unfilled jobs in the US. Available at: https://fortunedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/report-empty-desk-final-.pdf
Correll, S. J., Bernard, S. Paik, I. 2007. Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty? Vol. 112(5) pp. 297–1339.
