Strategies to Create a Conducive Work Environment for Women's Growth

By: Kamakshi Pant, Chief Business Officer, Taggd

An engineer turned management professional, Kamakshi possesses over a decade of experience in various functions within the HR and recruitment verticals. A strong proponent of diversity and inclusion within work environments, Kamakshi is a strong advocate of women's empowerment inthe workplace.

In today's hypercompetitive business landscape, the primary motive of any organization is to address the real-world problems that customers are facing. Since the customer segments comprise individuals of both men and women from varying demographics, maintaining diversity and inclusion at the management level enables organizations to effectively cater to all customer segments and even personalize the products & services to meet specific demands or requirements of those customer groups. Also, a product or service can never be complete if doesn't have the perspectives of both men and women. Additionally, women leaders possess crucial attributes such as empathy, resilience, and high emotional quotient which help them understand peoples' mindsets and emotions better than their male counterparts. As a result, they can drive people towards collaborating to collectively achieve organizational objectives.

Encouraging Women to take-up Leadership Positions

Firstly, the company needs to have women at even the managerial level and not just at the entry-level. Also, it is paramount for organizations to maintain equality in salaries of both male and female employees in their respective roles to get rid of the gender gap that currently exists within many companies. Additionally, the company must create a conducive environment for women to freely voice out their concerns & opinions and even be provided equal opportunities as men to showcase their skills at work and take uphigher-level positions. Furthermore, since many women are hesitant to seek help, organizations need to have well-structured mentorship programs for their women employees to help them excel in their professional lives. Most importantly, there must be strong governance mechanisms in place to track the number of women being promoted to managerial levels each year. At Taggd, we not only make sure that our top management drives the agenda of diversity and inclusion from the front but also have a separate committee that ensures women's participation right from the entry-level to the leadership level.

Factors Enhancing the Effectiveness of Mentorship Programs

A mentorship program can be deemed impactful if it is developed and executed in a structured manner and not impromptu. Thus, in large organizations with huge workforces, women employees must be divided into batches where each group has a specific time to attend the program so that all women get equal exposure to those mentorship programs. While many organizations have a false notion that only female mentors can effectively guide their women employees, it is noteworthy that including male mentors also within the women's mentorship programs helps female employees gain access to a wealth of information and even seek a perspective that women mentors may not be able to understand. Also, the mentors must communicate with each individual, understand their weak areas, and accordingly set goals & objectives for those employees to improve.

Promoting Work-Life Balance of Women Workforce

The foremost step that business owners must take to help their women workforce strike a balance between their personal and professional lives is to first understand their concerns and accordingly formulate policies that favor both employees and the company. Also, the management team must make sure that the policies are agile so that they can be changed if the need arises in the future. Additionally, since the concerns of each employee vary significantly in terms of their personal and professional lives, a one-size-fits-all approach is rendered ineffective on most occasions. Thus, the HR teams and the managers must coordinate with each other to understand the problems of each female employee and accordingly provide them with working options that fit them the most. However, for this to be practiced effectively, it is imperative for all the managers to regularly communicate with each employee and get to know their concerns better.