Unfavourable conditions

Workplace culture remains hostile for women

One of the less publicised aspects of the post-Covid bounceback in business around the world is the lack of progress in improving workplaces for women. This was the key message from consultancy firm Deloitte’s global Women@Work survey, 2024. The report talks of an “uncomfortable truth” — that women’s progress is stagnating both inside and outside the workplace. In particular, the transition to full-time work has resulted in difficult adjustments for women. The survey covered 5,000 women across 10 countries, including India, suggesting that the problem was more or less widespread. The root of the problem appears to be uncongenial workplace environments. Almost half the women reported higher stress levels than a year ago, only slightly lower than the 53 per cent in 2022, when workplaces started returning to normal, and about 40 per cent said they got mental health support from their employers, a statistic almost unchanged over the three-year period. A greater point of concern is the fact that only a third of women said they felt comfortable discussing their mental health with their employers, down from 43 per cent in 2022. A key related issue is the disproportionate burden that women bear of household responsibility. Between 40 and 50 per cent of the women surveyed said responsibilities for child care, domestic chores or caring for another adult devolved on them.

The evidence of the survey suggests that corporate cultures are still perceived by women as fundamentally hostile. For instance, 95 per cent of women believed that taking advantage of flexible work arrangements would negatively impact career progression. Roughly a third reported being excluded from decision making or interactions because of hybrid work arrangements and limited exposure to leaders. Nearly half of women remain concerned about workplace safety, and 43 per cent said they experienced “non-inclusive behaviours” at work over the past year — the bulk of it in the form of micro-aggression rather than outright sexual harassment. That said, there were some positives that suggest the direction of cultural reform at corporations. Though a concerning 27 per cent of women said they did not feel comfortable speaking up on personal issues like periods, menopause or fertility, only 15 per cent said they thought speaking up would negatively impact their career progression, and 13 per cent said their company culture did not encourage such openness about these topics.

It appears that more inclusive cultures remain in the minority. Deloitte identified a group of Gender Equality Leaders, organisations that, according to the women surveyed, created genuinely inclusive cultures. However, just six per cent of the women surveyed work for one of these organisations. Such organisations reported high levels of loyalty — including in the form of being recommended to other women — and their employees were likely to stay with them longer because they saw a path to career progression. The survey focused on the corporate workplace. The concern for India, however, is that the poor standards in office environments translate into even worse conditions on factory floors, where work cultures tend to be less sophisticated. But it is to the factory as much as to the white-collar office that India needs to encourage women to come. India’s unsafe and hostile factory environment is unlikely to achieve this unless these institutions change their cultures too.