Enhancing Female Empowerment In The Workplace
Tips to follow
Posted on 11-04-2020, Read Time: Min
Share:
Maria worked in a company where she demonstrated high levels of organizational commitment, putting in extra hours and sacrificing personal time. She was unmarried, which meant that her male colleagues and even her married female colleagues with children expected her to take on responsibilities that involved early morning or evening hours. Her salary was lower than that of her male counterparts who were married and had families to support in spite of the fact that she had the same level of education, had been in the organization the same amount of time, and had strong performance reviews. Promotions in the organization were largely internal. Those who were promoted appeared to belong to the “good old boys” club and have personal relationships with the company’s executives. After 20 years, Maria left the company to accept a leadership position in another firm. The office she worked in was female-dominant, and her supervisor was a woman, yet her co-worker, a single mother, was allowed to come in late and leave early every day in order to accommodate her children’s schedules. Another co-worker with children had work-at-home arrangements part of every week and in the summer. Maria was expected to keep strict office hours in addition to attending evening events. After a few years, Maria applied for and was hired into an executive position. The environment was largely male-dominant. She found it difficult to contribute to discussions in meetings because she could not insert herself into the conversation, so she tended to talk over people in order to get a word in. Her ideas were frequently attributed to someone else as if no one had listened to her or recognized what she said. She was also accused of being quiet. Her supervisor occasionally asked her to take notes in meetings when his administrative assistant was absent. When Maria presented proposals to the president of the organization, he would turn to the men in the room, who reported to her, and ask them what they thought; he mostly looked at his cell phone while she was talking. She also had very little decision-making autonomy and some of her male reports would suggest that she confer with her supervisor about an issue before arriving at a solution.
The Job Satisfaction-Gender Paradox
Many empirical studies have found that women tend to enjoy significantly higher levels of job satisfaction. However, this seems to be a paradox, as female workers are often receiving less pay, have less job autonomy, have fewer promotional opportunities, have less job mobility, lower chances for employer-provided training, lower adjusted probabilities of receiving pensions and health insurance, experience more workplace discrimination, and experience more stress in the workplace than their male counterparts. Three possible reasons for this job satisfaction-gender paradox, including:
- women have lower expectations than do men so they are satisfied with less;
- women may be socialized not to express their discontent; and
- women and men may value different characteristics in a job
Ultimately, while many studies support the idea that there are significant gender differences in job satisfaction between males and females, this connection is inconsistent. Gender difference in job satisfaction and related work characteristics needs further examination.
Our Research Findings
We wanted to better understand this job satisfaction-gender paradox and potential implications for empowering women in the workplace, so we set out to examine the experience of male and female workers in 37 countries, using data from International Social Survey Program (Work Orientations IV: 2015). We explored gender differences across four main categories of workplace characteristics and motivators: (1) Intrinsic Rewards, (2) Extrinsic Rewards, (3) Workplace Relations, and (4) Work-Life Balance.
Through our exhaustive descriptive and inferential statistical analyses, key research findings include:
Through our exhaustive descriptive and inferential statistical analyses, key research findings include:
- Overall mean job satisfaction scores for men and women across countries are similar, but slightly higher for men, suggesting gender differences are becoming less prominent than in the past.
- Job satisfaction for men and women is equally affected by extrinsic rewards, possibly because women have become primary breadwinners rather than providing supplemental income; thus factors related to pay, stability, and opportunities for growth are also important for female workers.
- Men and women both find satisfaction in doing work that is interesting, offers autonomy, and is useful to society, but work being helpful to others is not a significant factor in job satisfaction for men. This suggests that men have more of an instrumental orientation to work than women.
- Interestingly, being harassed at work was significant in predicting job satisfaction for men, but not for women. Although surprising, this may be because women are more used to experiencing regular harassment than men.
- Personal contact with others is a significant factor in predicting job satisfaction for men but not women. Men may have fewer personal networks outside of work, while women may have more.
- Working weekends and schedule flexibility are significant factors in job satisfaction for men, but interestingly not for women. As with harassment, this may be because women tend to have a heavier load in dealing with family matters and house work and may be more used to this reality than men.
How Can We Better Empower and Engage the Female Workers on Our Teams?
While our findings indicate that gender differences in job satisfaction may have lessened over the years, they also illustrate that significant gender imbalances still exist in the workplace. Drawing upon these findings and experiences like Maria’s, we offer the following suggestions as to how we can better empower and engage women in the workplace.
Get Curious – Find out about the women we work with! Be interested and aware. Notice differences and watch interactions in meetings. See where more interactions and acknowledgment can occur. Holding informal lunches or celebrations for promotions or other occasions are also ways to connect. These actions provide opportunities to learn more about female team members and build better team unity. Getting to know a female associate beyond the superficial level removes tendencies to see someone as a two-dimensional acquaintance, and instead presents a multifaceted and capable colleague.
Get Honest – Be willing to look at our own subconscious biases. Hold trainings and discussions that encourage an honest look at potential beliefs we might possess but do not always recognize or admit. This is the first step in helping companies and teams recognize and reject potential stereotypical beliefs and antiquated practices that may still be occurring within the workplace.
Get Educated – Replacing old beliefs with informed ones can be easier to do by consulting pertinent research. For example, research indicates that women’s contributions and leadership in the workplace lead to greater overall success in organizations (see Desvaux & Devillard, 2008). Findings like these can be a guide for implementing better practices to further empower and engage female team members while also bringing greater success to the team.
Get Real – Be willing to look at past company traditions and policies (including those that involve pay as well as extrinsic rewards) that have unfairly promoted or benefitted men over women. Acknowledge that these occurred and then execute changes that provide women with equal access to equal pay, rewards, benefits and promotions. Transparency and policy changes indicate real commitment to improving gender equality in the workplace.
Get Feedback – Provide multiple avenues for female employees to give feedback about their experiences on their teams without fear of retribution. Open a safe place for honest dialogue. Understanding the expectations, concerns, motivations and requests from women on our teams can help in making ongoing adjustments to policies and practices.
These suggestions offer a vision of more effective and successful teams where, rather than being excluded, hindered, undervalued or overworked, women are consulted, validated, valued and promoted.
While past research has found that women enjoy higher levels of job satisfaction than men, our research points to signs that this may be changing, on a global scale. In our research, job satisfaction scores are very similar between men and women, and though this could be a sign of positive trends to come, the driving motivators of job satisfaction provide a more nuanced view of these changes.
Our global study of workplace characteristics and motivators found that women may be more willing to tolerate negative aspects of a job than their male counterparts, but that they also have fewer available avenues to address workplace inequalities.
Further research is necessary to better understand the relationship between these workplace characteristics and motivators, but increased actions to empower and engage women are needed now. We need to: (1) get curious and learn about the women we work with through meaningful interactions, (2) get honest with ourselves and engage in self-reflection to find biases we might hold, (3) get educated through intentional exploration of current research, (4) get real by acknowledging systems and structures that reinforce gender inequality in our workplaces, and (5) get feedback through the creation of safe environments and mechanisms for women to express and share their authentic workplace experiences with their teams. These actions will bring about enhanced female empowerment and engagement in the workplace and move organizations toward a more healthy culture of validation, inclusiveness, and personal value to all their employees.
References
Get Curious – Find out about the women we work with! Be interested and aware. Notice differences and watch interactions in meetings. See where more interactions and acknowledgment can occur. Holding informal lunches or celebrations for promotions or other occasions are also ways to connect. These actions provide opportunities to learn more about female team members and build better team unity. Getting to know a female associate beyond the superficial level removes tendencies to see someone as a two-dimensional acquaintance, and instead presents a multifaceted and capable colleague.
Get Honest – Be willing to look at our own subconscious biases. Hold trainings and discussions that encourage an honest look at potential beliefs we might possess but do not always recognize or admit. This is the first step in helping companies and teams recognize and reject potential stereotypical beliefs and antiquated practices that may still be occurring within the workplace.
Get Educated – Replacing old beliefs with informed ones can be easier to do by consulting pertinent research. For example, research indicates that women’s contributions and leadership in the workplace lead to greater overall success in organizations (see Desvaux & Devillard, 2008). Findings like these can be a guide for implementing better practices to further empower and engage female team members while also bringing greater success to the team.
Get Real – Be willing to look at past company traditions and policies (including those that involve pay as well as extrinsic rewards) that have unfairly promoted or benefitted men over women. Acknowledge that these occurred and then execute changes that provide women with equal access to equal pay, rewards, benefits and promotions. Transparency and policy changes indicate real commitment to improving gender equality in the workplace.
Get Feedback – Provide multiple avenues for female employees to give feedback about their experiences on their teams without fear of retribution. Open a safe place for honest dialogue. Understanding the expectations, concerns, motivations and requests from women on our teams can help in making ongoing adjustments to policies and practices.
These suggestions offer a vision of more effective and successful teams where, rather than being excluded, hindered, undervalued or overworked, women are consulted, validated, valued and promoted.
While past research has found that women enjoy higher levels of job satisfaction than men, our research points to signs that this may be changing, on a global scale. In our research, job satisfaction scores are very similar between men and women, and though this could be a sign of positive trends to come, the driving motivators of job satisfaction provide a more nuanced view of these changes.
Our global study of workplace characteristics and motivators found that women may be more willing to tolerate negative aspects of a job than their male counterparts, but that they also have fewer available avenues to address workplace inequalities.
Further research is necessary to better understand the relationship between these workplace characteristics and motivators, but increased actions to empower and engage women are needed now. We need to: (1) get curious and learn about the women we work with through meaningful interactions, (2) get honest with ourselves and engage in self-reflection to find biases we might hold, (3) get educated through intentional exploration of current research, (4) get real by acknowledging systems and structures that reinforce gender inequality in our workplaces, and (5) get feedback through the creation of safe environments and mechanisms for women to express and share their authentic workplace experiences with their teams. These actions will bring about enhanced female empowerment and engagement in the workplace and move organizations toward a more healthy culture of validation, inclusiveness, and personal value to all their employees.
References
Desvaux, G., & Devillard, S. (2008). Women Matter 2. McKinsey & Company, Inc.
Author Bios
| Dr. Jonathan H. Westover is Chair and Associate Professor of Organizational Leadership in the Woodbury School of Business (UVU), Academic Director of the UVU Center for Social Impact and the UVU SIMLab, and Faculty Fellow for Ethics in Public Life (previously the Associate Director) in the Center for the Study of Ethics. He is also an experienced OD/HR/Leadership consultant (Human Capital Innovations, LLC), with experience transforming organizations across the globe. Connect Jonathan H. Westover |
|
| Maureen Snow Andrade is a professor in the Organizational Leadership Department at Utah Valley University. She has an EdD in higher education leadership from the University of Southern California and is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the UK. Her research interests include leadership, job satisfaction, work-life balance, business education, and distance education. She is a former associate vice president and associate dean and is currently serving as assistant department chair. Connect Maureen Snow Andrade |
|
| Jacque Westover is a Professor of Mathematics and lead math faculty at American Intercontinental University. She has also been a part-time math instructor at Utah Valley University (Math, Strategy and Operations, and Developmental Math departments) for the past ten years. She has a BA from Brigham Young University and an MA from Western Governors University, both in Math Education. She is currently finishing her Ed.D in Developmental Education Administration (ABD) at Sam Houston State University, with a dissertation on acceleration in Developmental Mathematics programs and its impact on student success outcomes. Connect Jacque Westover |
|
| Angela Schill is a visiting professor in Organizational Leadership at Utah Valley University. In Central America, she was head of research for the Latin American Center for Entrepreneurs, encouraging Latin American policymakers to support women's entrepreneurship. She is finishing her PhD from the University of Cambridge. She also graduated with an M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from Penn State and an MBA from Babson College. Angela's teaching and research focus is in Organizational Leadership with a specific interest in Women, Disabilities, and Minorities. |
Error: No such template "/CustomCode/topleader/category"!
