Workplace wellness for women is in need of a reinvention.
Today's fast-paced business culture glamorizes success without acknowledging the hidden costs. While leadership and building a successful career requires sacrifice, these burdens can vary significantly depending on gender. A recent Deloitte report highlighted the nuanced challenges women face in the workplace beyond the well-known gender pay gap.
Deloitte's Women at Work: A Global Outlook report, now in its fourth year, highlights the critical issues affecting women's careers. While the gender pay gap remains a pressing issue, the survey of 5,000 women across ten countries highlighted three often overlooked areas of concern: mental health, physical pain, and safety in the workplace and during travel.
Creating an Organizational Shift
Bio-individuality is a concept used in health and wellness to indicate that each person has a unique biological makeup. What works for one person in terms of diet and exercise may not necessarily work for another. Just as an individual has a unique biological constitution, organizations must recognize and address their team members' diverse needs, especially regarding women.
Creating an organization that adheres to a bio-individualized philosophy in its approach to wellness and culture could benefit talent retention and recruitment, employee engagement, productivity, and legal and ethical considerations. Here are three ways to incorporate organizational bio-individuality into your culture:
1. Expand The Approach To Mental Health
With 48% of women in the study stating that they are concerned or very concerned about their mental health, along with half of women expressing their stress levels are higher compared to a year ago, organizations need to move beyond generic wellness initiatives. Mental health is a potential financial tsunami, forecast to reach an unfathomable $6 trillion in global expenditures by 2030, according to a joint study by the World Economic Forum and the Harvard School of Public Health.
Acknowledging and understanding the nuanced factors contributing to stress, such as work environment, ageism, and other gender-specific challenges, is essential. Mental health apps and meditation classes are valuable but just the tip of the iceberg. Organizations must go deeper than the surface level to identify and address the root causes of the various workplace mental health stressors.
2. Don't Overlook The Stages of Life
In the Deloitte report, around 25% of women were dealing with health issues related to menstruation, fertility, or menopause. And 40% of women experiencing high menstrual pain or menopausal pain worked through it. Menopausal symptoms ranging from brain fog to insomnia to hot flashes are issues that affect roughly 25% of the U.S. working population. With that said a large percentage of women kept these challenges hidden, and to no surprise, even fewer women felt comfortable discussing these challenges compared to a year ago.
With a high percentage of women in the workplace dealing with gender-specific challenges on top of fertility rates dropping to their lowest in a century, it's beneficial for organizations to recognize the evolving needs of women's health. Providing tailored resources and support for these challenges through specific leaves of absence, focus groups, and other actionable steps can help create a supportive and high-performing environment.
3. Reimagine Travel and Workplace Safety
Business travel is back in full effect, with both men and women jet-setting across the globe. However, safety concerns, particularly during business travel, are significant for women. In the Deloitte study, almost half of the women worried about their safety at work or while traveling. Key actions include improving corporate travel wellness programs and policies by:
- Providing destination-specific research and intel.
- Placing team members in top-notch hotels.
- Offering readily available emergency support services.
- Utilizing dedicated car services instead of rideshare apps to enhance security.
While these statistics and the entire report may seem daunting, they nevertheless present themselves as an opportunity for forward-thinking CEOs and organizations to differentiate themselves by acknowledging (and taking action toward) the unique health challenges faced by women in the workplace.
By embracing a bio-individualized workforce culture, organizations can attract and retain the best people and, ultimately, create their unique advantage and thus stand out in the competitive business world.
