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Women in the workplace: Issues and challenges

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An interesting survey among the top corporate giants around the world confirms that women in the workplace have proved their stupendous presence in almost every industry and in huge numbers. They are strong, smart, technically competent and emotionally valiant in comparison to their male counterparts. As such they are rightly called as the new age corporate women. But despite achieving such huge laurels, women still face many obstacles in their workplace.

Gender bias and sexual harassment are not just what we are talking about but there are few more issues that are big hurdles for women to grow high up in the corporate scene.

Let us discuss the most predominant challenges that women in the workplace face in their day to day life.

Women need to prove

To meet the standard and to hold a higher position in a an organisation, a woman need to prove herself more than her counterparts. It is very common to hold a good and senior position by male in an organization. If we say woman also hold such position, it is definitely yes but that are very less in number. Women need to prove themselves, need to raise voice for their rights. Although they deserve such position, the positive result comes after a lot of hurdles.

Periods: a common problem

In a month, the most sensitive time for women are those period days. The pain, the irritation, the mood swings through which women have to go through these days can never be understandable by others. A woman needs proper rest during periods and hygienic environment is much needed. It seems that many organisations don’t have such facilities for women i.e. toilet. During period days, women goes through mood swings, depressions which are very real. But many people think of it is an excuse in the workplace which is totally not acceptable. Women needs to be conscious about their moods like their stains.

Pregnancy

Pregnancy is major concern at workplace. There are numerous examples of discrimination and job loss for women employees during their pregnancy period. The maternity discrimination is so higher that often it comes as offensive narration by colleagues or seniors, kind if advice to leave the job in the form of taking leave, no signs of promoting them to better position and finally women employees are fired. Even after the child birth, the amount of maternity leave is not sufficient to leave the child alone.

Sexual harassment

Not only someone’s unwanted touch means sexual harassment. Sexual harassment comes in the form of verbal comments, unwanted looks, messages and worst part is the physical touch. Many women employees don’t raise voice or file complaint against this kind of behaviour at workplace due to the fear of loosing their job if it is done by some senior personnel or due to the fear of hitting back at them. Even sometimes women need to carry the whole burden on their shoulder.

Female in a superior position

It is a common scenario to see a man in higher position but working under a woman in an organisation? How does it feel for other employees? Many employees think that working under a woman is not their cup of tea and they feel less satisfied. It is the result of old styled tradition of not engaging women at work and eventually there is less umber of women holding top most positions. There is no spontaneous encouragement for women employees and as a result seeing your boss as a woman is like seeing something unusual. Not only this, working under a female boss leads to ego clash also for other male employees as they are not supposed to take orders from a lady. Chances are there for verbal altercations and may try to ignore her.

Pay gap

Pay gap is major concern for women employee. Let’s take a small example here. If a woman employee takes a career gap due to child birth or any other issues, then after that period if she is willing to join again, she has to face a huge pay difference. Apart from this, gender pay gap is also there. Daily wage rates for men are different in different sectors.

The outer look

Most of the time women are judged by their appearance, their look, how they wear, what they wear, how they carry themselves at the workplace are matter of discussion or mostly a matter of gossip for other people. They need to be formal and decent every time other than being real. If a woman doesn’t dress well, others assume she does’t have office ethics. On the other hand, if a woman dresses well and pays attention on how to carry her, people talk behind her like she tries to get attention from others. So, anyhow women are judged by others and it is so complex to find a perfect look with a professional attitude.

Work-life balance

Another most noticeable challenge that women of today face at the workplace is the work-life imbalance.

Differentiating personal life and professional career becomes little hard for women in general. They tend to mix up work commitments with personal priorities and that’s when all the issue starts. The family feels neglected, friends feel lost and unfortunately, she has to face the wrath of her entire support system just because she has forgotten to draw the line between work and life. This challenge is mostly self-imposed and to get out of this mess, the woman has to help herself. As achieving work-life balance plays an important role in one’s life.

She needs to set her priorities right and plan her day well ahead. If she has to attend a family event and she is asked to attend a corporate dinner which is unplanned according to her, she needs to gather courage and politely refuse the latter as she has committed to her family. All she needs to manage is time and effort then everything falls in place.

Importance of women in the workforce

As per research, companies who have a higher number of women in their workforce have gained high financial profits and productivity as their output, when compared to the companies which have fewer women employees. Being in this 21st century, where women have been equally capable and successful as men, gender diversity at the workplace should be made a mandatory rule. Moreover, the companies which have a diverse workforce are more successful when compared to other companies which are mostly male-dominated.

Hiring women in the companies have many benefits as they are more focused, committed and successful even when they are under-represented most of the time. Workplaces are usually unequal and it is a global truth, one can easily understand it by seeing the pay, the positions, the designation what men and women get at work. But still, women have been victorious in making a mark on their own in this competitive market.

The best part about hiring more women in the workplace not only helps you double your gains and increases your organisation’s productivity but also make the workplace a better place to work.

Challenges are everywhere. Pushing oneself out of their comfort zone and trying something new and good is the challenge that one can impose on himself. More challenges one faces in life, his achievements and memories increase manifolds.

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