Women at the workplace. Image source: GQR.
Women at workplace: How to promote safe working environment
With the current world issues, the female employees in AirHost feel the urge to have an online gathering and empower each other. It is devastating to acknowledge that women at the workplace are still being marginalized from the workplace. Women can face confinement to job opportunities, social threats, and hostile working conditions. Sometimes, women have been stripped away from participating in the economic landscape or building a community for themselves.
Women in the working industries have come a long way. For many developed countries, more and more women are rising and taking up positions on par with their male counterparts. It is even prohibited to have female discrimination at the workplace. Consider us fortunate, those who live in these countries and are not entangled from many restrictions.
Last week, an (online) tea party took place among women employees at AirHost. We feel lucky to work in less turbulent societies than others out there. So we came together and shared our stories about women at workplace, our passions and motivations while working at AirHost.
Our working environment
Women in the working industries have come a long way. For many developed countries, more and more women are rising and taking up positions on par with their male counterparts. It is even prohibited to have female discrimination at the workplace. Consider us fortunate, those who live in these countries and are not entangled from many restrictions.
According to the UN Report, more women are striving for government and leadership roles, and laws are being reformed to encourage gender equality. Even though women have achieved these achievements, numerous challenges remain. Some of the obstacles might include discriminatory laws, the persistence of social norms, or the under-representation at all levels of political leadership. In general, the current global labor force participation rate for women is close to 49%, while the figure for men is 75%. While we can see this is a huge difference of 26%, some regions encounter a gap of more than 50 percentage points.
AirHost female employees are from different countries and recruited for various positions in every team. AirHost is striving to aim for the fifth UN goal: To achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Many women at the workplace undertake different essential positions, such as web developer or marketing director. AirHost is operated primarily on remote work. Therefore, the perks of this are time-saving since we do not have to commute to work.
Brookings revealed many women quit working after getting married due to cultural norms, the type of job offered to them, and legislative restrictions. Those young women who did work had a limited selection of occupations to choose from. According to a recent study, even while women currently enroll in professional institutions in roughly equal numbers as men, they are still far less likely to reach the top echelons of their fields.
Remote work could be especially beneficial to some women with a family since they will have more time to fetch a kid after work. In addition, working from home can sustain their work-life balance since we are surrounded by families all the time.
We have diverse work culture with people coming from different backgrounds. Image source: People Matters.
“I like the current working environment because I can work from home. I can arrange my own time in completing my daily task. This actually needs a lot of trust between the employer and employee. However, I am glad that my superior always has trust in their employees.” - J.S.T.- Sales/Singapore
In every company, every position requires certain expertise to carry out the tasks efficiently. At our workplace, many positions in our team require everyone to have the ability to empathize and pay attention to the emotions of others. This way, we can understand each other and get along well at work. The equality that this work offers also grants women at the workplace to share information openly and deliberately. Since we are constantly changing to adapt to a new environment, we are open-minded with new ideas to enrich our perspectives.
What are women’s achievements at the workplace?
To keep the company running smoothly, this is all due to everyone’s participation and hard work. Some women have reached the pinnacle of their careers and achieved significant success, namely Lynsi Snyder (owner of the fast-food chain In-N-Out Burger in America) or Lisa Su (CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.). Gender diversity and women’s participation are the determining factors for the companies.
According to the International Labor Organization research, Fortune 500 firms with three or more women on the Board of Directors averaged 28 times more revenue in charitable gifts in 2007 than those with no women. This will further reinforce the importance of women in the workforce.
We are a small company with 53 people, women accounted for 19. Therefore, it would be amiss to discount their tasks to the company’s operations and achievements.
“I am more or less worried about the ups and downs of mood when I do not perform to 100%, especially considering the restriction of movements and outings. But at present, I am proud of being an employee of AirHost, and at the same time, I have a lot of confidence in my company’s products to make sales in this area. Regarding the contribution, you have to let the boss evaluate it!” N. – Sales/Japan
When talking about improving the system, our UI designer from China discussed how she improved the corresponding interface of the company’s products. She revealed that it is such a proud moment to establish the design systems and components, which can take care of other tasks in the daily work. It is a humble moment that some might not feel proud of their achievements yet, but she is happy that she is still contributing to improving our product to satisfy our clients in the Singapore market.
We are proud of constantly improving the product quality and providing customers with care. At the workplace, when you are familiar with the system, everything would be easy to handle. Even though some of us joined the company for not a very long time, we can get used to the businesses and other colleagues in the future through consistency and perseverance.
How do we keep women motivated ?
We could feel a sense of motivation because we we do not judge others based on our gender. Our abilities are what define us. We could be more open to discussion among coworkers, and we can give/receive constructive feedback. Generally, it is a reciprocal process. By keeping this mindset in mind, we can enhance a safer environment to empower and motivate other people to participate in the workplace.
“A little bit of a challenging job that needs to handle multithreading well. Although I used to do overall coordination and management in my past jobs, I need more time at AirHost to figure out feature requirements, as the hotel industry is foreign to me.” - S. – Project Manager/China
At our workplace, many positions in our team require everyone to have the ability to empathize and pay attention to the emotions of others. This way, we can understand each other and get along well at work. The equality that this work offers also grants women at the workplace to share information openly and deliberately. Since we are constantly changing to adapt to a new environment, we are open-minded with new ideas to enrich our perspectives.
In the company, we can see that women are motivated since families are the shelter to help them endure the challenges. Besides families, we care about the quality of our work. We might have to spend hours on end to increase the performance of the products. Even though it might be challenging, we can gain new knowledge through these experiences. We can also develop as a person, and hope for the possibilities waiting for us ahead.
At AirHost, our job requires us to think about the emergence of various situations and noticing trouble. Also, this job involves perseverance to deal with future difficulties.
Image source: People Matters.
How should we promote a safe working environment for women at workplace?
As we have an international workplace from different countries, it is safe to say that we have a unique workplace culture. When different cultures and backgrounds come together, we can further understand about each other’s culture.
“Female colleagues bring a different perspective to the table. They generally pick up details that may be overlooked when focused on functionality. We also tend to be more self-regulated, but maybe more anxious about communication clarity and self-conscious about asking for assistance.” - S.Y. – Junior Developer/ Singapore
We all have our worries in life, but the most important lesson is to keep ourselves motivated to conquer hardship. When we engage with the company, we have established a sense of working identity. We also formed a deep connection with other women employees to value each other’s worth. Creating a safe environment for other women means you are also contributing your part in creating a safe workplace for yourself. It is important to give out a hand when other people encounter difficulties. In this way, you can rely on others when you are open up to someone for help in the future.
Image source: People Matters.
We can feel a great sense of empathy for women working in various business industries. Therefore, our advice to women at the workplace is to believe in yourself and trust in life to bring you all the experiences that will eventually give you. Dreams are what keep us pushing every single day and embed them in your mind on the pathway leading to your success. Be bold, dare to try, dare to fail, and dare to live. Embrace the challenges that life has given to us. Eventually, may the best come to you!
Written by: AirHost Marketing Team.