What does empowering women in the workplace mean?

As a girl growing up in India, I benefited from a household and network of strong and loving women, including my older sister, my mother, my aunts, and my grandmothers who raised me. 

Married at 16, my paternal grandmother was college-educated with a History and English major, which was incredibly rare in 1920s India. Fortunately, her father saw value in education irrespective of gender, which was an attitude that my grandmother passed on to everyone in the family. 

Growing up in this environment, the conversation around women in the workplace is one close to my heart. Empowerment to me has always been about choice. It is about having the freedom to choose my life path and a career path that I desired based on my merits and skills. It also means that if a woman decides to have a career as a homemaker, it is a choice that she makes. 

Studies have established the benefits of diversity in the workplace. But while women make up almost half (47%) of all employed adults in the U.S., we hold just 25 percent of computing roles. Moreover, women occupy a mere five percent of leadership positions. The figures speak for themselves. Despite greater awareness and a slew of initiatives for women in the workplace, more needs to be done to empower us.

Recognize that every woman is unique

To address gender bias as a society, we need first to understand that the circumstances around each woman are different. To help women thrive, don't treat us as a collective noun. Instead, we must be treated as the individuals that we are, and have specific and yet, varied programs such as mentoring, that can support us.

Also, shoehorning us into a handful of stereotypes or a prescriptive approach does little to move the needle on empowering us in the workplace. Indeed, we must also be cautious about shifting the ball back into women’s courts, which can happen when we unconsciously focus on how women can behave more like men at work – only to experience the backlash later on.

Creating equity and inclusion 

The list of practical initiatives companies can provide is endless and transcends ‘initiatives’ and broad rhetoric around empowering women. 

We need to start with the basics, such as creating equity for both women and men. Promotions, leadership roles, and incentive programs should be available to both, including a woman who is expecting or who has just come back from maternity. Beyond these basics, a little practical help can go a long way towards changing the status quo. 

Companies have to recognize that what it takes for women to be successful in the workplace is different from men. For instance, some assistance at pivotal periods of women’s careers can mean a world of difference because not everyone has access to the same resources or assistance. A woman with young children might benefit from access to company-provided childcare facilities. Flexible work hours tied to deliverables and specific outcomes rather than rigid working hours can also offer the leeway that a mom might need for emergency childcare needs. 

We are witnessing working mothers shouldering the brunt of juggling between work, childcare and remote schooling during the current COVID-19 pandemic. This struggle is especially acute among women with young children and nearly a quarter say they may take a leave of absence or quit altogether, dissipating the gains women have made up the management ladder in recent years. 

It takes a village 

We all need a lending hand to build a more robust, diverse workforce, which includes having men as our allies – at work and home. As the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in an interview with the New York Bar Association years back, “Women will have achieved true equality when men share with them the responsibility of bringing up the next generation.”

Advancing the cause requires creating a workplace and culture that encourages women to pursue and retain leadership positions. It will require a commitment and an attitude shift. 

For organizations truly focused on equal opportunity for women, I urge them to take an honest look at your leadership norms, culture and policies, which will help set the tone and structure for women leaders to find continued success and growth. At Qlik, I am thankful that we are doing an excellent job in creating this culture of inclusion. 

Finally, women at all levels can also have an open discussion of how to improve, paving the way for us to bring our best to the workplace.

About the author:

As the Executive Vice President of Strategic Clients at Qlik, I lead a multi-disciplinary team that blends sales, value engineering and consulting services. My teams advise strategic clients on their digital and data transformational strategies for large enterprise customers to maximize the value of their overall investments in data, and in Qlik’s data integration and analytics platforms. If you would like to discuss how your organization can start leveraging the full value of your data, please feel free to get in touch with me at [email protected].