By Esha Chakraborty

Forbes recently carried an article called the ‘Great Break up’! It was inspired by the Women at workplace report 2022 published by Lean.in and McKinsey. One of the key findings of this report was how women are now demanding more from work and are not shying away from leaving their companies in unprecedented numbers to get it!

In fact, the report calls out that women leaders are switching jobs at a higher rate, even higher than their male counterparts. Now that has been a long time coming…isn’t it? For years while the gender ratios have improved at the entry-level, the so-called broken rung has resulted in more and more women either dropping out of the workplace or being overlooked for promotions to leadership positions.

We have all, at some point, had to prepare extra hard compared to our male colleagues because women get lesser second chances. We have all had to put in insane hours at work taking on more assignments, and projects as compared to our male counterparts, just to be able to prove ourselves and yet when you look around you see very few women leaders around.

Hence the findings of the women at workplace 2022 report did not come as a surprise to me…Here are some key findings

• Women are dramatically underrepresented in leadership: only 1 in 4 C-suite executives is a woman and only 1 in 20 C-Suite executives is a woman of colour.
• Among employees who switched jobs in the past two years, 48% of women leaders said they did so because they wanted more opportunities to advance and about 59% said they are contemplating switching in the next year
• The representations continue to be skewed in engineering and product roles; women hold only 34% of entry-level engineering and product roles and just 26% of first-level manager positions, compared to 48% of entry-level roles and 41% of first-level manager positions in the pipeline overall

While the statistics are not very encouraging, what is great though is the fact that women leaders are demanding more, especially in terms of career advancements and the organization’s commitment to the well-being and DEI. The latter in fact is a major consideration for women. And while the women in workplace report, is focused on Corporate America, the sentiment seems to be widespread. A closer look at the list of best companies in India for women has names of organizations that are known for their commitment to employee wellbeing, flexible working conditions and better DEI ratio. However, one of the alarming trends that the report highlights is that women leaders are 2X as likely as men leaders to spend substantial time on DEI work without getting acknowledged for it during performance reviews. This is despite enough research indicating that companies with better DEI ratios lead to better outcomes for all employees. This creates a worrisome trend of DEI initiatives being relegated to ‘office housework’ – work that is critical for business but not compensated, sounds familiar? This also leads to more work for women leading to burnout. 

This is more worrisome for countries like India, where despite having higher employability than men, only 33% of women are part of the workforce, a number which has dipped by 4% as compared to 2021.

So, what can organizations do better to fix the ‘broken rung’, ensure a better working experience for women and prevent burnout amongst its women employees?

1. Equity-based hiring and promotion policies are a must-have for all organizations irrespective of size
2. Coaching and leadership development programs targeted particularly at women employees to make mentoring opportunities available to them and to help them overcome social conditioning which makes them wary of speaking out or demanding their seat at the table
3. Making DEI a critical goal for all leaders in the organisation is too important an aspect for any leader to not choose to drive it in their teams and the organization at large. Performance reviews are a powerful tool to bring about this cultural change in the organization and ensuring any effort in the DEI space is duly recognized
4.  Addressing unconscious bias through training and interventions to help employees identify and avoid instances of bias and microaggressions towards women

And while the larger ecosystem and the organizations need to take adequate steps to address this gap, as women employees it’s important for us to advocate for ourselves and seek opportunities

1. Invest in learning and upskilling – For many women, learning takes a back seat because the burden of housework and childcare mostly falls on them. This is evident from statistics where more women than men had to exit the workforce, during the pandemic, to make time for family. Taking out 30 minutes every day can be a worthwhile investment towards one’s learning
2. Build a career path with your manager – It’s imperative to clearly call out the advancements you are eyeing, and timelines and create a plan. You might need to repeat this again and again, and have follow-up conversations, but don’t give up till you are sure you have been heard
3. Get mentorship – Find mentors for yourselves, mentors who will help you navigate the workplace and talk you up when required. If you are a women leader, go ahead and mentor other women in your organization 
4. Be authentic – Be very clear about your purpose and be always true to it. You are the values that you bring to the table
5. Marry wise – quoting Sheryl Sandberg here – ‘find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home’

The pandemic was a bigger setback to women than men, we are now expected to achieve gender equality in 135 years as compared to 100 years pre-pandemic. But we have come a long way and going by the women at workplace report, women today are more ambitious and are not afraid of asking for and getting their due. So let this be the year we got louder and more fearless!

2023 can you hear us…loud and clear?

Reference

https://leanin.org/women-in-the-workplace#

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1043300/india-work-participation-by-gender/

https://indianexpress.com/article/jobs/it-companies-feature-most-among-indias-best-workplaces-for-women-in-great-place-to-work-rankings-2022-8206303/

Esha Chakraborty is a product aficionado and a change addict! She started her career as a process associate and has over 18 years of experience in Customer Service Operations, Program Management, Change management & communications and Product management. She is currently working as Vice President for Genpact’s Transformation Platform – Enterprise360! She is also a mother, a bookworm and a kathak dancer, and moonlighted as a short story writer in her past life!