Often the primary caregivers to both children and elderly parents, women can be sidelined and underestimated in workplaces that don’t provide support. So, what supports are available to women in the workplace and do they feel comfortable availing of them?
Challenging times
The challenges faced by women in the workplace stem from the fact that the system was set up by men for men, with little consideration for equity, says Sarah Healy, founder and chief executive of Tools for Better.
“We have for decades now, and to certain levels of success, attempted to wedge women into a system that does not work for anybody, even the men that created it,” she adds. “The knock-on effect of this is the perceived value we put on some roles in society over others. For example, there’s a huge investment to get more women in Stem and more women in leadership positions. However, there is not the same effort to reset traditional gender roles at a primary-school level and to place an onus on the importance of the carer role for children and older generations.”
For this reason, these responsibilities continue to fall to women, Healy says. “This leads to the situation that we find ourselves in now, that women continue to bear the mental and physical load of family support whilst also investing in fulfilling and meaningful careers.”
A whole life approach
At a national level, strong legislation provides for basic maternity, paternity, and parental leave, says Gillian Harford, country executive at 30% Club Ireland. “The real value is in the number of companies going above and beyond the minimum, seeing it as central to attracting and retaining their workforce,” says Harford. “It’s interesting to see progressive companies integrating caring policies into a ‘whole life’ approach, where not all leave needs are child-related, especially in early career, and there is a growing need for elder care support later in life.”
Healy says, as a mother of two school-going children, she found that the game-changer was remote working. “This allowed the flexibility to drop the kids to school and pick them up at the end of the day,” she says, something she labels “a small but life-changing adjustment”.
One area I looked at was the hosting of summer camps on company grounds. There are many teachers with summers off willing to host such camps, and the reassurance of knowing your kids are near when you’re in the office is priceless
— Sarah Healy, Tools for Better.
“This only works if you have a culture of trust in the organisation, which goes hand in hand with output-based performance management,” she says. “Being output driven mitigates proximity bias and goes a long way to reset the view that working longer hours equals better work.”
Menopause policies
Harford has seen an upsurge in the introduction of menopause policies, a development she sees as necessary to give greater attention to an issue previously seen as taboo across society.
“However, as understanding grows and conversations around these topics become more mainstream, we anticipate that these needs will eventually be more easily addressed through wellbeing and sick leave policies,” she says.
Healy identifies areas in which women require support as including maternity leave, menopause, returning to work, fertility and grief, and childcare, as well as around menstruation and endometriosis.
“The Civil Service rolled out a comprehensive menopause policy just this year,” she say. “It covers all touch points for an employee, from location adjustments to performance management. This is needed across the private sector too.”
Exiting the workforce
The prohibitive cost of and/or lack of access to appropriate childcare is a significant reason for women leaving the workforce by necessity rather than by choice, says Healy. However, she says that “beyond subsidised schemes, there are imaginative solutions that companies can pursue.
“One area I looked at was the hosting of summer camps on company grounds. There are many teachers with summers off willing to host such camps, and the reassurance of knowing your kids are near when you’re in the office is priceless.”
Normalising practices
According to Harford, 30% Club member companies “would certainly feed back that [women-specific] policies are adding value, particularly in reflecting wellbeing for employees across all normal stages of life”.
“The deeper value is that it becomes another demonstration of business reflecting topics rightly becoming mainstream across society, which makes it an easier conversation in the workplace for employees, line managers and wellbeing practices,” she says.
Healy speculates that women do not always take advantage of some of such policies because doing so has not yet become normalised.
“Women may fear that taking this leave will reflect badly on them from a performance and career perspective,” she says. “Also, women have endured the menstrual cycle throughout their working careers and they may not feel they need to take it. This may be something that requires the next generation to embrace as they enter the working world.”
Solving the problems women face in work is not a single-strand challenge with a single-strand solution that is within the control of business, says Harford.
“We are navigating generational and societal shifts driven by factors such as childcare, caring responsibilities and the economic implications of higher labour participation rates among women – and this requires collaborative solutions across government and business,” she says.