How to Improve Gender Equality in the Workplace?

In today's dynamic business environment, it has become crucial to achieving gender equality at workplace. There have to be new guidelines for employers to create a healthy and functional environment free from gender equality. This will help in the growth of the organization to a huge extent. According to a survey conducted by Indeed, 55% of job seekers find it pretty much important to work in a company that pays attention to diversity and gender equality.

As per gender equality at workplace statistics, there are less than 5% of women CEOs at S&P 500 Companies. Gender inequality has been plaguing the entire workplace for a long time, and this has resulted in a loss of various skills like enhanced decision making, different perspectives for addressing certain global issues, and much more. Gender equality would help in bringing new opportunities and scopes for the organizations.

Before moving towards the ways for improving gender equality in the workplace, let us understand in brief about gender equality and its benefits.

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What is gender equality in the workplace?

The concept of gender equality in the workplace refers to a place where the employees of all genders are provided with equal exposure to all the rewards, resources, and opportunities in the company. Gender equality also includes:

• Equal pay for similar roles with similar responsibilities
• Parity across opportunities for career progression and promotions
• Equality in the consideration of needs

Benefits of Gender Equality in the Workplace

There are plenty of benefits for the companies that are willing to take gender equality at workplace seriously. Some of the most significant benefits are:

1. Build up a Great Reputation

With good intentions and ways to promote gender equality, you would be creating a great reputation for your company. People who wish to work in the same culture would be happy to work for you, and with the help of happy employees, the workforce is productive, effective, and positive.

2. Enhanced innovation and creativity

People of different genders would help in bringing unique skills, strengths, and talents to the workplace. This will help in creating a creative and innovative environment. It has often been seen that gender diversity helps a lot to create an effective and productive workplace.

3. Positive company culture

When there is gender equality, it helps in developing a work environment where every individual feels respected and valued. This enhances the positivity of company culture. Certain employees would be possessing different skills and the other employees would respect those skills among the team.

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Ways to Achieve Gender Equality in the Workplace

Now, you would know the basics of gender equality and its benefits. The next thing that you might be thinking about is how to achieve gender equality. There are plenty of ways of achieving or improving gender equality in your workplace. Here are some of the most significant ways:

1. Enhance diversity by altering hiring practices

You can start by modifying your job descriptions to promote gender equality on an initial basis. You must go through your job descriptions and check whether anything needs to be added or not for broadening your pool of applicants. The language that you use would affect a lot on the thinking of the people because if you use words like "dominant" and "assertive", then it would be attracting more men and fewer women.

If you have observed, there are more men seen in the tech industry roles, while more women seen in the support and assistance-oriented roles. This has to be changed and a balance at both places has to be established. Some of the best ways to promote gender diversity through hiring practices are:

• Developing a gender diverse workplace
• Better job descriptions that are bias-free
• Interview panel should be filled with both the genders

2. Equal Pay for both Men and Women

The concept of equal pay for everyone in the organization is an essential element that has to be considered. The pay should be varying based on job roles and positions and not on the basis of gender. A level of transparency should be managed by introducing a regular pay structure. This would be eliminating issues related to discriminatory pay. An annual pay audit should be conducted for evaluating whether there are any gender bias issues taking place in the organization or not.

Women are seen working at every position even in the MNC's. They are no longer considered to be a weak gender, and this is the reason why there should be equal pay given to both men and women as per their roles and work. The issue of gender equality needs to be taken seriously and acted upon in the right way. This is a significant way of enhancing gender equality in the workplace.

3. Leadership Opportunities for both Men and Women

It is a myth that only men can handle the work as a leader and women should work in support-oriented roles. These types of people create gender discrimination in workplaces. If an individual has the abilities to handle the leadership role, then no matter whether the candidate is men or women, the role should be given to the deserving candidate.

One of the best ways to promote gender equality is to offer leadership based on skills and not based on gender. Women leaders would help in achieving gender equality in the organization as more women would be hired. More women would consider that particular company by seeing women leaders and mentors.

4. Strict Policies against Harassment Issues

There are plenty of people who have experienced harassment issues at their workplace. Every company needs to work on creating strict policies for several offences like ra cism , bullying, and sexual harassment in the organization. If any such offence is prevalent in the organization, there should be strict action taken against that individual to avoid such situations occurring in the future.

According to certain statistics, it has been found that approximately one out of four women have been harassed mentally or physically in the workplace. It is the primary duty of every employer to keep an eye on such issues and avoid them from happening in the workplaces. There should be precautionary measures taken by the employers to prevent such scenarios as ignorance of such activities could lead to serious issues for the organization. It would not only disturb gender equality, but also the company's reputation in the market.

5. Promoting Work-Life Balance

It becomes difficult for women to advance in their career and fulfil their goals due to a lack of support in childcare and household works. Women have a lot on their plates as they have to look after the household works, take care of children and also handle the company work simultaneously. Female employees should be provided with childcare support to give a boost to gender equality at workplace.

Companies should take a step forward and offer paternal leaves to the fathers as the upbringing of a child is not only the duty of a mother but also the duty of the father. Stress level is minimalized with the help of an effective work-life balance in the working environment. Substantial positive impact can be witnessed if corporate enterprises arrange flexible work arrangements for maintaining the work-life balance.

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6. Developing an Open Minded Atmosphere

The creation of an environment with gender equality is only possible when the employers, managers, and team leaders work with an open mind. If the majority of people in the organization are gender-biased, then it would be affecting the growth of the organization in the long-term. The employees should be praised and appreciated based on their skills and works and not based on their personal favourites.

An open-minded atmosphere will help the employees to absorb new ideas and work on them without any hesitation. If the thinking of the employees of the company is conservative, they would never be able to work with the innovations and flow with the new trends of the market. To cultivate gender equality in the workplace, it is pretty much essential for the employees to have an open-minded policy.

7. Update Training

The training that is being offered in the organization should be checked again whether it is meeting with the policies of gender equality or not. There should be a better impact of training on the employees, and it should be bringing out a positive effect on the workings in the company. Another significant option is to make it mandatory to take up gender equality training every year. With the help of this training, the minds of the employees would be clear about the policies of the company and that would be reflected in their actions.

There are a myriad of ways to promote gender equality in the workplace. With this comprehensive list and the benefits of gender equality, it would be very well clear how important it is to promote gender equality in every organization. Other than these ways, the suggestions of employees should be considered as they would be of great value for making any improvements in the work culture.

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