Those companies that don’t realize women’s value in the workforce are missing out. A willingness to hire and promote women doubles the talent pool. Women are known to improve company performance through emotional intelligence and good verbal and nonverbal communication skills. However, eighty-seven women are promoted for every one hundred men promoted to manager level. This results in men holding 60% of managerial positions in most companies. The number of women decreases at each further level of leadership. Read on to discover more advantages of women in the workforce and how you can encourage equality, diversity, and inclusion in your company.
The Advantages of Having Women in the Workforce
There are numerous benefits to having women in the workplace.
- Women are good motivators: The positive regard of women for colleagues/subordinates increases workplace productivity.
- Women are great delegators: Women tend to delegate and provide opportunities to others.
- Women bring attention to real-life problems of organizations and their employees. This often creates more flexibility in the workplace.
- Women know how to create work-life balance. They often effectively juggle children, elders, volunteer work, and employment.
- Women are good communicators (verbally and nonverbally), showing patience, actively listening, and bringing empathy to the conversation.
- Women have emotional intelligence: They’re nurturers, sensitive, and good problem solvers.
- Women value human relationships: They’re great at analyzing problems, managing relationships, and building teams. They tend to be tolerant and calm, making decisions without harming others.
- Women have a strong work ethic: They tend toward loyalty, transparency, and ethical practices.
- Women are detail-oriented and good negotiators, helping them reach creative solutions. They tactfully communicate, pay attention to detail, make sensible decisions/deals, and consider others’ points of view.
- Women bring compassion to the workplace, making them collaborative, inspiring, and supportive.
- Women bring diverse interests to the workplace, such as sports, politics, music, painting, cooking, interesting topics of conversation, etc.
- Women are strong team builders: They foster feelings of togetherness, team loyalty, and group effort. They understand other’s opinions.
- Women are assertive rather than aggressive, allowing them to handle tensions and complex situations with optimism.
- Women motivate others to excel: They encourage colleagues to flourish and are generous, friendly, and giving.
- Women make great managers: They bring a collaborative approach, intuition, and compassion to the managerial role. They inspire others to do well.
- Women contribute positivity and optimism to the workplace. They are strategic, focused, and can manage crises.
- Women embrace team-centered objectives/goals: They attempt to understand the needs of others, are interactive, and bring relationship-building skills. They motivate others to the benefit of the organization.
- Women increase profitability: Companies with over one-third of management positions held by women have a 25.6% annual return compared to the 11.7% return for the average company during the same period.
What do Women in the Workforce Want?
Since women bring multiple benefits to the workplace, it’s in a company’s best interest to attract and retain women employees. To do this, businesses must understand and provide what women want.
- Women want meaningful work: Women want to make a difference while doing work they enjoy. They desire employment that relates to their values and purpose and fits into their lifestyle. Essentially, women are less interested in just having a job and more interested in doing work that feels like a calling.
- Women want flexibility: Even women without children desire a flexible schedule and the ability to work from home. They’re interested in flexible start/finish times, compressed hours, time off in lieu, job sharing, flexible rostering, flexitime (banking hours), and/or casual or part-time work.
- Women want leadership opportunities: Women are as likely as men to be interested in leadership opportunities and leadership development (classroom training, one-on-one coaching, online courses, mentoring, action learning, networking, job rotation, professional development, etc.).
- Women want perks: They’re interested in raises, healthcare, promotions, dental care, student loan match, paid leave, life insurance, bonuses, childcare, pensions, etc.
- Women want gender parity in experiences, pay, and opportunities for success.
How can a Company Attract and Retain Talented Women?
To reap the many benefits of employing women companies can:
- Share internal goals for diversity, inclusion, and equity: Transparency sends a powerful message to women that they are supported by the company, attracting qualified women and ensuring that they stay.
- Improve women’s progression and experience by tracking outcomes (participation in development programs, employee sentiments, performance ratings, etc.) and using the data to create equal opportunities for advancement and improve experiences.
- Endeavour to reduce and/or eliminate microaggressions toward women by making clear they are unacceptable, raising awareness, developing a code of conduct, providing bias/allyship training, and fostering a climate that encourages women to speak up.
- Finetune flexibility: Companies need to be clear about what tasks need to be done in person and what can be accomplished remotely, track what’s working and what is not working, and adopt a co-creation model with their employees. Consider creative solutions (job sharing, virtual work teams, sabbatical options, flexible start/finish times, compressed hours, time off in lieu, etc.).
- Remove bias from performance reviews and promotions: Develop and implement safeguards that ensure evaluation criteria are fair and unbiased. Reminder reviewers of safeguards before evaluations take place. Require reviewers to explain promotion recommendations and evaluations to reduce judgments and bias.
Women are entering the workforce in ever greater numbers. This benefits your company! If you wish to attract and retain talented women give them what they desire from work. Invest in their career advancement, remove bias, and consider flexibility.
Looking for talented women to employ in your organization? Want to work for a company that offers women flexible work situations and advancement opportunities? Contact Equation Staffing Solutions. We’re here to help you find the job or staff you need.