Two top reasons why women were leaving companies in 2021 and how to retain them in the future

You have noticed that women tend to leave your company at higher rate than men. You've maybe also tried to find out what could be the main cause for such a trend. If you ended up with answers like:

• "women leave my company when they get a child"
• "women leave my company when they get a promotion to high-responsibility role"
• "women leave my company because of COVID-19 pandemics"

??Then go on reading this article

These events are only triggers which force women to take radical step, such as leaving a company. The true reasons behind are much more complex and usually ongoing for many months or years before the trigger event finally happens. I've trained women everywhere from New York to Amsterdam to Singapore to develop their strategic leadership skills in 2021, and here are the top two reasons why women were leaving companies that I have collected from them.

Women suffer from negative micro behaviours more often than men

Women all around the World are being interrupted, shut down, explained and lectured on topics of their expertise, both by men and women. They are more blamed for failures and given less credits for their successes. Women's ideas have been taken by other people, without giving them credits for their ideas. Women have been told it's better they stay home to take care of their kids and family. ?

Such examples of negative micro behaviour are called microaggression and they happen because of unconscious people preferences that we have. We unconsciously assume that contributions of women are less valuable than contributions by men. This is why both?men and women interrupt women three times more often than men ?when they speak or present their ideas. Most women remain silent when microaggression happens to them, because of fear that they will be seen as not nice colleagues. If they have not been given credits for their ideas, women choose not to "make it a big deal" because "important is that the job is done". On a long term, they might feel that their contributions are less valuable, not important or wrong and eventually stop sharing their opinions or even leave the company.

Steps towards solutions: Create a safe environment for women in which they will feel safe to share examples of microaggression that they suffer from. Talk to them 1 on 1, in smaller groups or with external coach or trainer. Take microaggression situations serious and take actions to prevent them happening in the future. Provide unconscious bias training for all people in your company and discuss practical cases in anonymous way you've got from talks in safe environment.???

?

Women are asked to constantly work longer hours

Women are more often asked to take more 'office administrative work', such as arranging a meeting or gift, taking notes or making the presentation slides; and all this on top of their own 'content focused work'. This results in women working longer hours, because their day actually starts in the afternoon, after they're done with all that low-importance work. Women have also been asked to join many after-work activities, evening sessions, weekend sessions, where important decisions are made in unofficial way. Women are more often than men given a promotion with new responsibilities, while still in parallel doing their old job because 'there was no one who could take it over'.

This happens because many companies around the world were historically founded by men and most influential positions in business are still held by men. The rituals, rules, and customs to which many people in business adhere, were long time in the past adopted to fit the preferred working style of their founders - a masculine style. Quite often, these rules are both unwritten and unspoken. One of the examples of such masculine unwritten rule is: 'flexibility' means doing business unofficially after working hours or in the weekend. On the other hand, feminine unwritten rule is: 'flexibility' is being allowed to choose the time of the day when doing your 8h job. In practice, masculine unwritten rules means constantly working about 50-60 hours a week, while feminine unwritten rule is respecting a 40 hours contract.

?Steps towards solutions: Make the rules of making a career in organisations more transparent and truly equal for everyone.?In case these rules are not aligned with your contracts, company policies or are damaging health of your people, change the unwritten rules. "To foster the success of your female employees and your company as a whole, you must recognise problems in your management activities and then take steps to fix them" -?Harvard Business Review ?article “How to Close the Gender Gap” by?Colleen Ammerman ?and?Boris Groysberg.

Retaining women in your company requires a deep look into unwritten rules that are deeply embedded in your company culture and dealing with microaggression towards female employees. It requires rising awareness, taking action and long-term commitment.

Go beyond triggers and seek for root causes. Carefully listen to your female employees and they will tell you what you need to do.?

Mira Vasic is a keynote speaker, career coach and trainer on topics of unconscious gender bias and female leadership.?She is a Senior Partner at 'In Touch Female Leadership & Career Academy' and lecturer at Geneva Business School.

You can register for her upcoming "Stratego for Women" workshop here .