Whilst society has made progress with gender equality, there are still some challenges that women face in the workplace that hold themselves and their careers back. Our Women in the Workplace report highlights some of the common challenges faced by women which we’re sharing in this blog post. The full report will be released in the coming days. Here are some of our findings:
Representation of Women
Women continue to remain underrepresented at every level, starting from entry level jobs to C-suite roles. According to the Women In the Workplace 2018 report, representation of women of color is the least causing them to stay behind white men, men of colour and white women. Women of color comprise only 17% of entry level roles and 4% of C-Suite positions.
This underrepresentation gets worse in senior management positions. Only 22% of C-suite executives are women. In fact, as compared of 62% of men in managerial positions, only 38% of women are promoted to be managers.
What’s interesting to see is that the number of women and men leaving their companies is almost the same. Therefore, attrition can’t be blamed for this inequality and misogyny.
Policies that don’t help women
One of the challenges faced by women is the ineffectiveness of workplace policies from maternity and paternity packages to advancement processes. Our global Women in the Workplace survey revealed that 42% of women did not feel that advancement processes gave them adequate support to progress in their careers. As an example, only 29% of women in Britain reported that they felt they could have children without it affecting their career. When women do return to work, they report missing out on opportunities and promotions. Childcare also proves difficult, where some women cannot afford to return to work or they struggle to juggle work and childcare. There are many benefits to flexible working, especially for parents, but companies are still hesitant to offer genuine flexible hours. Companies need to shift their focus from hours sat at a desk, to productivity and results. Interestingly, a study from Thrive Global revealed that people in an office are only productive for 3 hours out of an 8 and a half hour day yet with flexible working both managers and employees reported more productivity.
Race and Gender Bias
Women of color continue to deal with some of the workplace’s most entrenched hurdles. Everyone has unconscious biases — even the best-intentioned people — which play out in their everyday lives and interactions such as those in the workplace. Working women of color face a unique set of challenges that intersect across race/ethnicity, gender, and culture. Because of this, many women of color who oftentimes have to deal with daunting roadblocks such as other people’s beliefs, attitudes, and experiences.
Lack of equality in opportunity
Due to some stereotypes of a traditional society such as motherhood, consortship or being a housewife, women feel themselves under pressure. This also a direct cause of gender discrimination cases for women in their business life. For example, some companies with these kinds of tendencies do not employ women who think to marry or have a child.
Sensuality as an excuse
Another difficulty for women in their business life is that people believe in that they are not appropriate for a position as “they are sensual”. Due to this belief, some professionals think that women are lack of management skills and they sometimes seek to prevent career development of women.
Taking measures to prevent and solve these kinds of problems with which women may come across in their business life is really important as these measures will definitely make them more happy, more calm, and more productive. This will affect Turkish society positively.
Sexual harassment
The tricky topic of workplace sexism and harassment has become even more evident in recent years, with women plucking up the courage to share their horrific stories. It’s sad that women are still faced with these kind of challenges in the workplace. Why does your sexist boss think that he can lure you into his office on his own and try to seduce you or make a sexist remark as he’s passing by your desk? We are all equal in the workplace, so if a colleague tries to belittle you, pluck up the courage and put the sexist pig back in his place.
Work-life imbalance
Another noticeable challenge that the working women of today faces is a work-life imbalance. Their personal life tends to suffer due to work commitments or vice-versa. Family tends to feel neglected after endless nights of staying late at the office to complete an all-important project. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, women still find themselves in the same dead-end position years later, because they have to leave work on time to pick up their kids from their after-school activities. Unfortunately, this can sometimes be self-inflicted; to get out of the mess, we need to organise our time better and get our priorities in order.
