{"id":9544,"date":"2019-10-25T06:24:37","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T04:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bmkedev.wpengine.com\/?p=9544"},"modified":"2022-10-17T14:40:08","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T12:40:08","slug":"women-feel-less-valued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/women-feel-less-valued","title":{"rendered":"Why Women Feel Less Valued in the Workplace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Women in the workplace have made great strides but inequality still exists in most companies in Kenya. The issue of gender disparities was tackled in a 3-pronged approach in the Best 100 Companies to Work for in Kenya 2019. These are value for work done, job level and remuneration.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;The <a class=\"article-body-links\"href=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/best-100-companies-2019\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Best 100 Companies to Work for in Kenya 2019<\/a>&nbsp;report revealed that 24% of women felt that their employers valued them for the work they did as compared to 34% or their male counterparts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9555\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Gender_1200by630.jpg\" alt=\"why women feel less valued\" width=\"1200\" height=\"630\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Gender_1200by630.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Gender_1200by630-378x198.jpg 378w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Gender_1200by630-1024x538.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Gender_1200by630-770x404.jpg 770w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Gender_1200by630-600x315.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Gender_1200by630-390x205.jpg 390w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The report also showed that men hold more senior positions in the workplace than women even though they hold lesser entry-level positions and same mid-level distribution.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9558\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Monthly-Salary_1200by630.jpg\" alt=\"women feel less valued\" width=\"1200\" height=\"630\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Monthly-Salary_1200by630.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Monthly-Salary_1200by630-378x198.jpg 378w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Monthly-Salary_1200by630-1024x538.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Monthly-Salary_1200by630-770x404.jpg 770w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Monthly-Salary_1200by630-600x315.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Monthly-Salary_1200by630-390x205.jpg 390w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This means that they catch up with their female counterparts in the mid-level then surpass them at the senior positions. This also translates to remuneration and benefits allocation. Men generally occupy a higher monthly percentage across all job-level demographics.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a class=\"article-body-links\"href=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/gender-pay-gap\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Read this article about the Gender Pay Gap in Kenya<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_81 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-69f80ac0d8125\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"ez-toc-cssicon\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-69f80ac0d8125\"  aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/women-feel-less-valued\/#What_Exactly_is_the_Issue_with_Gender_Disparities_in_the_Workplace\" >What Exactly is the Issue with Gender Disparities in the Workplace?<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/women-feel-less-valued\/#Traditional_Roles_and_Stereotypes\" >Traditional Roles and Stereotypes<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/women-feel-less-valued\/#The_Issue_of_Unequal_Pay\" >The Issue of Unequal Pay<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/women-feel-less-valued\/#Existing_Barriers_that_Stand_in_the_Way_of_Better_Pay_and_Advancement_for_Women\" >Existing Barriers that Stand in the Way of Better Pay and Advancement for Women<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/women-feel-less-valued\/#Glass_Door\" >Glass Door<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/women-feel-less-valued\/#Glass_Cliff\" >Glass Cliff<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/women-feel-less-valued\/#Glass_Wall\" >Glass Wall<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-8\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/women-feel-less-valued\/#Glass_Elevator\" >Glass Elevator<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/women-feel-less-valued\/#Its_Time_to_Address_these_Issues\" >It&#8217;s Time to Address these Issues<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_Exactly_is_the_Issue_with_Gender_Disparities_in_the_Workplace\"><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What Exactly is the Issue with Gender Disparities in the Workplace?<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9548\" src=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Have-your-budget-right.jpg\" alt=\"women feel \" width=\"1200\" height=\"630\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Have-your-budget-right.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Have-your-budget-right-378x198.jpg 378w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Have-your-budget-right-1024x538.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Have-your-budget-right-770x404.jpg 770w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Have-your-budget-right-600x315.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Have-your-budget-right-390x205.jpg 390w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The problem here is not about achievement. Women have caught up with their male counterparts in the workplace where education and skills are concerned. Yet the workplace still does not view workers as whole people but as male and female employees.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Traditional_Roles_and_Stereotypes\"><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Traditional Roles and Stereotypes<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When cultural and traditional role segregation comes in, men automatically get the \u2018more taxing and bigger roles\u2019 while the \u2018delicate ones\u2019 are left for women. Also, where it comes to young adults balancing family roles and work, women end up shouldering nearly all care giving responsibilities. This automatically disadvantages women in the workplace because their time is split between two demanding roles. It is, therefore, unfair to expect to fairly compete with their male counterparts for promotions and senior roles.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"The_Issue_of_Unequal_Pay\"><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Issue of Unequal Pay<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Local and international research has shown that women earn approximately 80% of what their male counterparts in the same role, possessing the same academic background and experience earn.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The fact that less female respondents in the Best 100 Companies report feel that they are valued by their employer is a testament to this. This problem results in many negative effects on the female employees including feelings of bitterness, anger and envy. Imagine discovering you are&nbsp; paid less than someone else in your department doing the same job with similar or less effort. Such feelings obviously affect performance and effectiveness of someone&#8217;s role. Some people might even quit prematurely.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Existing_Barriers_that_Stand_in_the_Way_of_Better_Pay_and_Advancement_for_Women\"><\/span>Existing Barriers that Stand in the Way of Better Pay and Advancement for Women<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Most likely, you have come across the word &#8220;glass ceiling&#8221; as a metaphor of barriers that hold women back from achieving their full potential. While barriers against advancement exist, most companies avoid solving them because they will then be admitting that their workplace has been intentionally discriminating against female candidates ad employees. Either way, companies should review their processes and take out any biases that result in unintentional discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>Other than glass ceiling, below are some of these barriers;<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Glass_Door\"><\/span>Glass Door<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>These are barriers that prevent women from being hired for senior and high-paying positions. It is founded in the conventional societal stereotypes that categorize jobs for men and women thus steering female candidates and employees to &#8220;feminine jobs suited to their physiological and genetic makeup&#8221;. These stereotypical positions and roles ultimately set women up to gender-based pay.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Glass_Cliff\"><\/span>Glass Cliff<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>This is experienced in many facets of societal life not just in the workplace. It describes how women are treated when they achieve senior or leadership positions. They are held to a higher standard as compared to their male peers and are subjected to a more strict scale. This often leads to bad reviews and stagnation in opportunities and salary options.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Glass_Wall\"><\/span>Glass Wall<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Some female employees might face barriers while attempting to grow laterally in a company. For instance, a female marketing professional might find it more difficult to shadow an accountant and eventually learn skills that will see the switch departments than their male counterpart.<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Glass_Elevator\"><\/span>Glass Elevator<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>This is the practice of unusually fast promotions that male employees get when working in traditional feminine jobs like customer service, nursing etc, even when they have less work experience than their female counterparts. This comes from societal and cultural conditioning that positions men to automatically go for bigger challenges more than women.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Its_Time_to_Address_these_Issues\"><\/span>It&#8217;s Time to Address these Issues<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Below are steps employers and companies can take to ensure fairness, diversity and inclusion in the workplace.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Institute diversity in panels that decide hiring and promotion practices. This will ensure diversity and inclusion is maintained and the best candidate is hired or promoted based on merit.<\/li>\n<li>Understand how bias and stereotypes infringe professional practices and identify ways of ensuring they are taken out of processes.<\/li>\n<li>Ensure role titles and the job descriptions are gender neutral when hiring and promoting. For instance sales person instead of salesman.<\/li>\n<li>Supporting primary caregivers in families (which are mostly female employees) by introducing flexi-schedules and times. This shows a true desire to be inclusive.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Women in the workplace have made great strides but inequality still exists in most companies in Kenya. The issue of gender disparities was tackled in a 3-pronged approach in the Best 100 Companies to Work for in Kenya 2019. These are value for work done, job level and remuneration.&nbsp; &nbsp;The Best 100 Companies to Work [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":9545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"content_author":[],"class_list":["post-9544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-at-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9544"},{"taxonomy":"content_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brightermonday.co.ke\/discover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content_author?post=9544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}