How You Should Be Protecting And Supporting The Women In Your Workforce

A thriving and successful business is one that employs both men and women. Both genders bring skills and talents to the table. No one gender is more effective than the other. It is for this reason and many more that it is in your best interest to have a mix of genders in your workforce. This goes for whatever industry you work in, from construction to beauty.

However, the way you protect and support your staff does differ slightly if they’re female. Women, for example, are the ones who carry and give birth to children; not men. Women are also far more often discriminated against when it comes to promotions and pay. For this reason and many others, women in the workplace need support in a way that their male counterparts may not.

So, let’s pinpoint a number of ways you should be protecting and supporting the women in your workforce. From physical acts of installing CCTV and using tracker apps, we also look at moral support. This is for issues such as harassment and discrimination. We also touch upon the issues of maternity leave, pay and arrangements for flexible hours, as well as awareness of outside issues.

Closed-circuit Television (CCTV)

If you want to monitor your workplace and workforce with CCTV, it is important that you know the laws, rules and regulations of such an act. However, once you have read up on this and ensured you can comply, go for it. It is a fantastic way of monitoring happenings and actively making staff feel safer. It shows your workforce, whatever their gender, that you are taking steps to protect them. Furthermore, if something does happen, you have physical proof of exactly what happened. Video footage can be crucial in pinpointing the culprit and establishing who, if anyone, was at fault. It is always worth installing it right across your premises. So that goes both inside and outside your office or place of work. CCTV to monitor any staff areas, like smoking zones, and also carparks is also wise. This way you are showing consideration for your staff and also their personal belongings and vehicles. You can view Security Camera King for details of one such brand with a good reputation. You may also want to speak to other business owners in your local area to find out what they use.

Tracker App

A fantastic way you can protect potentially vulnerable members of your workforce is with a tracker app. This tracks them during their day, but also ensures that you can monitor their safe passage to and from work. They don’t require your staff to carry anything extra on their person, as they can download them as apps on the phones. Each program varies slightly, but the premise is usually the same. Your worker tells the app when she is setting off on her journey to or from the office. She predicts how long it should take her. Once she arrives safely, she notifies the app by ‘checking in’. If for any reason she doesn’t check in, somebody is notified of this. It may be the management team, or the app developers, or the emergency services. The apps are sometimes known as lone worker apps and are equally useful in these scenarios. Again, you can roll them out right across your company, irrespective of gender.

Clear Harassment Guidelines

Harassment of women in the workplace is an issue felt all over the world.

You may not be able to fix such a universal issue, but there are steps you can take to protect the women in your care for it. First of all, you need to set out a clear harassment policy for your entire workforce. A zero tolerance of harassment of any type should be established. However, this also needs to be accompanied by what a worker should do if she (or indeed he) is subject to harassment. Finally, if issues are brought to you, it is imperative that you deal with them with sensitivity and discretion. Your staff deserve to know that if they do find the courage to take an issue to senior management, that it will be dealt with correctly.

Generous Maternity Leave and Pay

Have you heard of employee engagement? It is an old and well-established concept but has recently been put into real action by a number of companies. As the name suggests, it’s all about making your employees more engaged with your company and their jobs. The idea is that in doing so, they will give more to the company. One of the top incentives companies following employee engagement plans use is enhanced maternity leave and pay. Obviously, there will be the legal minimum you can give your staff. However, extending this leave and improving what is offered can be highly effective. Research has suggested that as it results in happier female staff, they are also more effective and hardworking when they do return to work.

You can implement a similar scheme for the men in your workforce, by also introducing enhancing paternity leave and pay. All around, implementing more generous schemes for parents-to-be and new parents sets you apart. It shows that you are a forward-thinking company who cares for their staff and well-being.

Flexible hours

Along a similar ilk to maternity leave, flexible hours are something that moms to be and current moms will greatly appreciate. When children reach school age, a parent’s life is dictated to a certain degree to school hours. You can support the staff in your workforce, whatever their gender, by offering flexible working hours. It doesn’t mean they work any less or get any less work done. It just means they do it at different times. Maybe they could start a couple of hours early a couple of days a week, and finish a couple of hours earlier. Just like maternity benefits, flexible hours can result in much happier staff.

Of course, it is not just parents who should get to benefit from the flexibility of their own unique hours. Consider each case on its own merits.

For some companies, flexible work hours are simply not an option. A large part of your business may rely on speaking with other companies, whether that be through phone calls or email correspondence. This can therefore only be done at the time that the other company is working. 9 am to 6 pm are the most common working parameters, so you may have to adhere to these. If this is the case, find other ways to make work more flexible for your staff. Maybe they could work from home one day a week instead?

Discrimination

Women are harassed in the workplace, and they are also discriminated when it comes to promotions and senior level roles. Take a step back and look at your workforce. Do you have a senior committee made up of all men? Are all of your managers men? Do you have entire teams with one or two women in? Then you may also be discriminating against the women in your staff. You may not even be doing it intentionally, or realizing you are doing it. However it is simply not fair to not have women in senior roles in 2016! Of course, you should never appoint someone for a role just because she is a woman. However if she brings all the same skills to the table as a male counterpart, she should be considered fairly and with an open mind. You also need to review your pay situation. If you are paying men and women differently for the exact same work, or the same hours in the same role, that is discrimination. This is not a word that you want to be associated with your brand. It is also not something you want on your conscience!

Awareness of outside issues

There are many training courses out there suitable for mid to senior level managers. As the business owner, it is important that you know the signs. However, your managers may be in closer contact with the workforce on a daily basis. For this reason, they need to know what to look out for. If a woman on your workforce is suffering domestic violence outside of work, this is your still your responsibility. An awareness of the issues going on inside our worker’s lives is imperative. From a superficial level, it is going to affect their ability to work and their daily output. However, far more importantly, your staff members are under your care. They deserve to have you looking out for them and protecting them in any way you can. As with harassment, if any issues do come to the fore, they need to be dealt with correctly. Seek external help if you feel it necessary, or bring in the help of the police force.

Support for New Mothers

Once a new mother returns to work, she still deserves your support and understanding. A good example of where is when breastfeeding. Support for breastfeeding is thin on the ground, but this is not something anyone should be able to say about your company. New mothers are also susceptible to postnatal depression, so be aware of this.