6 Steps Leaders Can Take to Stop Making Women Choose Between Family and Career

Generally, women are at a great disadvantage in today’s competitive world. Gender inequality is an issue of huge importance and has had women gain attention from the media. However, much remains to be done. One of the problems that women have faced through the past decades and even to this day is because they have children or not. Imagine being a woman who wants to work but has responsibilities at home or vice versa; what would you do then? It’s a common problem, and I will be showing some steps leaders can take to stop such discrimination.

1. To Stop women to Choose Between Family and Career offer flexible working options:

 A letter writing book agency published an article in which they find that women professionals leave their academic positions at a much higher rate than do similarly situated males in all the fields, including academics. While there may be many underlying reasons for this, the author suggests the possibility that because females have to sacrifice so much to “lean in” (career and family), many of them simply give up.

That is, it may not be unreasonable for a woman who has gone back to school full-time at age 35 or whatever to decide that she can’t really afford both kids and an academic career.

What is the way out? 

The easiest way for a leader to stop making women choose between family and career is to offer flexible working hours. This doesn’t mean you should unilaterally decide that all women must work from home, but consider this: Many women desire flexibility in their day-to-day work hours but fear they will lose their career opportunities if they cannot provide this in full measure.

When you offer flexible hours and other benefits to your employees, it is not only important to give them personal attention, but it is a powerful tool for changing their mindset about how they view their working lives.

2. Make the current culture and policy more inclusive of stopping women Choose Between Family and Career:

The current culture and policy are difficult everywhere in the world, including the United States. This makes it extremely difficult for working women to accomplish the traditional goals of marriage, child-rearing, and a career. The result is more women than ever before are choosing a career over a husband, child-rearing, and/or home.

What is the way out? 

Make the current culture more inclusive. This means challenging the widespread beliefs and stereotypes about what it means to be a woman in the workplace. These beliefs have created pathways of thought, behavior, and perception that systematically disadvantage women.

Therefore, a new work policy should be introducing and provide leverage to aspiring women so they don’t have to choose between family and career.

Likewise, introduce policies that make it easier for parents to take time off work to care for newborns, toddlers, and teenagers can also be family-friendly. Henceforth, such family-friendly policies and companies can stop women choose between family and career.

3. Treat employees as adults and support them with the resources they need to do their jobs, so women do not have to Choose Between Family and Career:

Family is important; it is a fact of life. But working mothers need support just as much as working fathers. They do not have the luxury of taking time off to go back to work when their child is ill, sick, or their spouse gets an unexpected promotion. It is not fair that working mothers lose income when they go back to work after giving birth.

Many things can be done to help working mothers balance their careers with being good parents. Therefore, to support the working mothers, companies can offer the support and resources they need to complete their job successfully. Yes, there is no time and resources who slacks off but ensure that the employers support the female employees when needed.

4. Support career development and work-life balance so employees can have better work/life integration:

The standard American work-life balance model promotes a single track for life: a 9-5 job at the office, home life in the suburbs, and children at school. This model doesn’t make sense for very many people. It’s expensive to raise a family as it is, and it sacrifices many opportunities for advancement and personal development.

What is the way out? 

Leaders do not make it necessary to be on the job physically, especially when work can be done at home through an internet connection or email. Making the employers come to work for a meeting when it can be simply emailed is absurd for the employees.

Another suggestion is to create family-oriented policies that give parents freedom. This way, they can pursue their career goals while maintaining a healthy balance between their home life and workplace responsibilities

5. Leadership coaching for women and men so that no one has to choose Between Family and Career:

If the best step leaders can stop making women choose between family and career is to educate themselves on issues related to working women. Then, we will have moved much further in solving the problem of gender inequality in America and around the world. After all, it is families that are often forced to make difficult decisions. Such as balancing work and home duties or putting child care on hold. Because there simply isn’t enough money in the household to accommodate both a primary job and child care responsibilities.

What is the way out? 

Since the job landscape is quickly changing, more and more women are heading out for job opportunities. They are trying new careers and earn a higher income. At the same time, more men are stepping forward to take on leadership roles in organizations and businesses. So, both the genders are on the same page, with the same number of opportunities. Therefore, it has become essential to offer leadership coaching to both men and women.

6. Choose Between Family and Career: Use the power of words – making the language more inclusive.

The words we use have a lot of power. We use them to communicate, challenge, reinforce and create cultural norms. We use them to polarize issues and discussions. Phrases like “be a man” and more can create unequivocal expectations from women. Likewise, when women achieve success, they often become the victim of quirky remarks and jealousy. This must not be appreciated. Likewise, the suggestions are based on a partial view of womanhood that should be changed or abandoned if we value women as full members of society.

Conclusion: 

No individual has to choose between family and career: be it men or women. Everyone deserving person merits success, and everyone deserves to move a step ahead in their career. However, this troubling weight comes falling on the women when they decide to start their family. Henceforth, if leaders follow the steps mentioned above, customizing it according to their work nature can see a true change within their work culture.