Importance of Women in the Workplace

Companies that put a strong focus on women employment have a huge advantage over those that don’t. Not only do more women boost your talent pool and help your company perform better–they also tend to be happier and less burned out. The importance of women in the workplace has never been greater. And right now, it’s especially crucial that companies meet this moment with creativity and leadership.

To improve women employment in the long run, companies need to focus on three areas: improving employee experiences; doubling down on gender and race diversity; and investing in people management and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). A key challenge for women is the fact that they often face a double whammy of work and family demands. They need to balance the responsibilities of their jobs with their personal commitments, and they need to be confident that their employer will make it easy for them to do so.

Mothers of young children are a particularly common example of these challenges. As a result, many mothers of young children feel pressure to work longer hours and to perform at a high level, while also struggling with burnout or considering leaving their jobs. This pressure and stress add up to a negative work experience. And that can have serious consequences for a woman’s ability to stay in the workforce.

The Importance of Women in the Workplace

Despite the significant progress we have made in the past two years, women employment still experience an overall worse day-to-day work experience than men. In particular, they are more likely than men to encounter microaggressions–i.e., a subtle and often-unconscious bias that undermines their competence and authority.

For women of color, this day-to-day experience can be even more challenging. They are twice as likely as White women to experience “othering” microaggressions that reinforce harmful stereotypes and cast them as outsiders. And they are more likely than White women to experience microaggressions that undermine their professional performance–for instance, being interrupted by colleagues and managers, or having their judgement questioned.

While these experiences can be debilitating, they aren’t limited to women of color–they can also impact men of color, as well. Research shows that Black men who are denied promotions or raises often cite gender and/or race as the reasons they were passed over.

These problems are particularly true for women of color, who are twice as likely as White men to report that a discriminatory incident has affected their employment in the past year. And they are more than twice as likely to say that they have felt like an outsider in their workplace, and almost three times as likely to experience burnout.

To improve women’s employment in the longer run, companies need to focus on three areas: increasing their representation; improving employee experiences; and doubling down on gender and race diversity. These efforts are vital to creating an environment that helps everyone in the company thrive, which in turn leads to higher profits and better workplaces for all.