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As a manager, it will be partly your responsibility and role within an organisation to help combat gender barriers. This means you need to be inclusive and fair to everyone involved. Here are some methods you should consider implementing.
Support Women For More Senior Roles
One of the most important elements you should consider when it comes to helping overcome gender barriers within your organisation is by providing support for women moving into senior roles. There are gender targets in place for businesses to aim towards, with clearly defined milestones to get businesses started.
This way, you will help remove a barrier for women by not discriminating against them. It’s no secret that many traditional businesses have a predominantly male boardroom, but times are changing.
Leaders Need To Understand The Struggles
Whether it’s you as a male business owner or manager, you will need to understand all of the barriers women face within a workplace. Otherwise, you will never be able to help create an environment that is open to all.
Consider speaking to the women currently in your business to find what their experiences have been. Of course, they may not feel comfortable discussing it in the open with you, so consider finding a way for everyone to have a say anonymously. This way, you may discover challenges and struggles women have had that they may not have felt comfortable directly talking to you about.
You should also consider looking into educational tools at your disposal to help improve your knowledge on the subject. There will be course-based work that you can take to help navigate the challenges women face.
The courses are useful for both men and women, with women using them to help develop leadership skills to help influence, persuade and empower a workplace. You should look into the best online educational outlets in order to get the best knowledge you possibly can. Fortunately, there are effective women’s leadership development courses to be found at great value, that last only a short time giving you everything you need to know.
Eliminate Bias Within The Recruitment Process
Look carefully at how you word a job advert. There are many times a manager will post a job advert using male-centric terms and words that put off women even from applying. Even if they apply, they may find their CV is never even looked at in some jobs and industries purely because of their gender.
That’s why you should standardise the process. Making it inclusive ensures you help find the best talent for your organization regardless of who they are. If you feel that there could be some bias within your organisation, then consider anonymising CVs with names, so that no one will think differently straight away, or buy using a blind evaluation process.
Always Look At Salaries
Whilst many people will incorrectly dismiss the claim that men earn more money than women, the evidence is overwhelming to prove them wrong. In 2020 alone, the difference between men and women’s average hourly pay was 6.5%.
Analysis shows that whilst the gap is getting smaller, it is still there. As a business owner, you will need to ensure that the gap is non-existent within your organisation, as it truly has no purpose to reward a gender for equal work. That’s why you should be constantly looking at the salary and pay within your organisation, in order to make adjustments when needed.
Educate Workers On Romantic Situations
A lot of stigmas regarding women in the workplace often come from the way in which employees deal with romantic situations. Often, workplace romances are inevitable in some ways, so you will need to educate your workers on how to deal with them.
Importantly, don’t forbid actual relationships, instead ensure you are teaching how to deal with consent and how to navigate awkward situations that could potentially arise. This way, you will be able to protect both women and men in your workplace with regards to romantic and sexual engagements.
Have A Clear Policy On Discrimination
Whilst you may think you and your employees would never do anything discriminatory, it’s important that you make it clear to both new and current employees that there is a privacy – policy in place that is non-negotiable. This will help protect women who will feel safer knowing that if there are any issues in the workplace, such as unwanted advances or anything that is frowned upon, then the guilty party will be punished.
Destigmatise Parental Leave
For both men and women, having a baby is an exciting and important time. The last thing they want to be thinking of is returning to work. That’s why you should work with them beforehand to find the fairest time for everyone involved to have time away from work.