A Guide to Empowering Women in the Workplace | Christine Riordan

Women empowerment is one of the greatly emphasized issues in our time. Empowering women by giving them equal opportunities and eradicating common vices such as sexual harassment in the workplace and beyond is gradually gaining pace. In your workplace, you can contribute towards women empowerment by undertaking various steps.

Hiring Women in Management Positions

Giving women employment opportunities, especially in leadership positions, gives them an opportunity to contribute towards shaping the business and company in general. The contributions that c-suite women have towards their workplaces are so crucial in helping inspire other upcoming women leaders. Their policies and ideologies also help in making your workplace and company a conducive working environment for women.

Training Women

Regular women training in the workplace gives them an opportunity to be readily equipped with knowledge that helps in self-empowerment. Women training which focuses on relevant contemporary issues such as sexual abuse and the broad concept of women empowerment helps them to rise to the occasion fearlessly.

Avoid Bias

Showing bias in various aspects of your workplace can be so detrimental to the ability of women to feel appreciated and empowered. Any element of bias and negative treatment against women should be greatly discouraged to create a conducive environment for women to come out strongly and feel empowered. The zero-tolerance policy on biases against women such as sexism and negative sarcasm helps everyone in the workplace to appreciate the place that women have. This helps in nurturing gender-based respect in the workplace.

Providing Public Speaking Forums

Public speaking forums are a great opportunity for women to continually express themselves on issues that matter on their lives in the workplace. Such forums also come in handy in helping women to be spoken to by prominent women leaders on how they can progressively improve their competence in the workplace. The forums also help to create a viable and suitable environment of transparency and accountability.

Close the Wage Gap

Women empowerment in the workplace can also be enforced by giving them equal and proportional pay with other workers. On average a woman who is working 40 hours a week earns 80.7 cents for every dollar a full time working man gets. According to the US Census Bureau, women’s median annual earnings are nearly $10k less than men’s.

Proportional salary and remuneration give them an opportunity to feel equally appreciated for talent and skills. Good salaries also help them to achieve other aspects of personal financial development that they desire.

This blog was posted originally on Medium.com