What are the things that women should know before they shift into the workplace?
A workplace is a place where someone works for their employer or themselves or simply a place of employment. It can be a home office or a large office building or factory. The workplace is one of the most important social spaces other than the home in an industrialized society.
What are some of the workplace issues?
A workplace is a place where people from diverse places come together, however, there are many issues that are dealt with on a daily basis in any workplace.
Sexual harassment is one of the most popular issues of any workplace. It interferes with the performance of a person's job or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment.
There is a special type of aggression in a workplace called workplace aggression.
Workplace bullying is the tendency of individuals or groups to use unreasonable behavior against a co-worker.
Workplace conflict is a special type of conflict in a workplace.
The social culture followed in a workplace.
There are text messages or emails which threaten employees.
There is an application of democracy for all in the workplace.
Workplace deviance is the intentional desire to cause harm to an organization.
There is discrimination in hiring, promotion, and job assignment to workers.
The workplace is a place with people from different backgrounds and hence has a diversity which is good to understand the demographics of the market.
The work is reviewed.
The employees are given the opportunity to make their own decisions and shine.
There is gossip, politics, and sabotaging work in the workplace.
There are several harassment cases in the workplace.
What is the history of women in the workplace?
Women have been working with or without payment. Women in the Victorian era had no choice and had to work to support themselves. Women worked both from home, and outside of the home. Many women of that era were also employed in small industries like nail making, matchstick making, and shoe stitching, where the hours were long, and the pay was extremely low. Women were not paid as much as their male counterparts. Clementina Black, one of the only two women delegates at the Women's Trades Union Council, proposed the first TUC equal pay resolution in 1888. Most women did not take paid work and those who took were expected to leave work after marriage. Women were not even persons within the meaning of the Solicitors Act of 1843. It took six years for women to become people and get admission to the roll under the Sex Disqualification Act 1919.
Women were recruited into either voluntary or paid work in order to release men to be enlisted into the armed forces, during the First World War. The war effort created new jobs for women and there was an increase in the employment rate of women. The National Service Act 1941 made the recruitment of women into the workplace legal. Almost 90% of single women and 80% of married women were employed in essential work for the war effort.
What are the things that women should check before joining a workplace?
Getting a job is not easy but getting a good job is much tougher. Putting in mind the gender gap in the workplace, women have to think about multiple things before joining a workplace.
Every employer of a workplace with more than 10 employees should have a committee known as the Internal Complaints Committee according to the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. So, before joining a company, you must check with the employer if they have a functional ICC in all of their branches.
The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 regulates the employment of women in every establishment which has more than 10 persons. According to this act, the employer must provide paid maternity leave of up to 26 weeks/6 months to pregnant women and a pre-natal leave up to 8 weeks/2 months. So check with your employer if they provide all these benefits to a pregnant woman or not.
According to the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, an employer is bound to pay equal salary to the employees carrying the same task irrespective of their caste, class, gender or race. You must check whether your company gives equal pay to all the employees who do the same kind of work.
Before joining any company, you must check with them whether they have proper facilities of security and transportation for their female employees who will be working night shifts.
Check with your employer whether your office has a separate retiring room for women with proper facilities of washroom and water.
Check for the workplace area and the local people.
You must feel secure about your job and yourself, so you must check about the security.
If you are going to relocate for the job, you must check with the employer about housing facilities.
Mental health is very essential to work efficiently and live peacefully, you must check the workplace environment beforehand.
What organizations & employers can do to support women in the workplace?
There are a few things organizations and employers can do to help women.
As a leader, take the time to learn about their personal values, passions, strengths, and life goals and find ways to integrate these things into their career.
Whenever possible and practical, help the workers by providing virtual work teams, and sabbatical options that can help employers find the best talent no matter where or when they need to work.
All the genders must be given equal opportunities for work, promotions and development. Employers can provide mentoring and sponsoring to support talented women with a network of champions.
Conclusion
A workplace is a place where someone works for their employer or themselves or simply a place of employment. There are some issues related to the workplace which are quite evident on a daily basis such as sexual harassment, workplace politics, gossip, diversity, deviance, bullying, discrimination, etc. Women have been working with or without payment. But it was World War 1 and 2 that raised the employment of women and also the equal pay laws increased the rate of working women.
Being a woman, you must see factors such as job security, equal pay, maternity leaves, ICC cell, area around the workplace, people and environment, and most importantly individual safety before shifting to a workplace.
References
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace
https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/7-reasons-want-women-workplace/