It is easy to blame the exodus of female employees from your organization on motherhood, family, and child-bearing.
However, this is not the truth. In fact, it is an established fact that female employees who are mothers and have a family to care for always return to work more ambitious and motivated. So, why are women leaving your company? Is there a way to prevent the movement of talented, professional women out of your company?
Below is a list of why ambitious, strong women will leave your company and what you can do to prevent it.
1- Pay Gap
Why Women will leave because of the Pay Gap?
Your company will fail to retain its female employees if there is a pay gap between your male and female employees. Most times, companies tend to pay professional women less than they pay their male counterparts. This happens despite the fact that women are offering the same services as men. If your company doesn’t extend benefits like healthcare, and insurance to female employees in the same capacity that these benefits are extended to the men, your company is going to have the quantity and percentage of its female workers reducing year after year. Most women leave companies where they are underpaid for companies where they are paid more and offered more benefits.
How To Prevent It
Part of being a leader is understanding when and how to be responsible for your followers and team. The best way to ensure the retention of female employees is to be supportive. If they are not as well-paid as their male counterparts, you are not supporting them. You should support and empower the professional women in your team by ensuring equal rights for everyone. Ensure that your door is open to these women and try to ensure that they have a healthy work-life balance. Provide the guidance and ensure that they get the same job benefits as their male counterpart.
2- Lack of Job fulfillment/Undervaluing of Women
Why Women will leave because of the Lack of Job fulfillment
Most professional women seek fulfillment in their profession. This is why they seek out companies that give them this value. If your female employees don’t enjoy the role they are assigned or don’t find meaning and joy in the work, they will seek employment elsewhere where the task assigned them provides meaning, purpose, and a sense of fulfillment. In contrary to the opinion that women often leave their jobs to cater to the needs of motherhood, female employees actually leave companies that are not supportive of their growth and development. If your firm doesn’t value its female workers, they will leave in search of companies where they are valued.
How To Prevent It
To retain the majority of your female employees, you have to make the workplace conducive and comfortable for them. You have to ensure that women are valued in your team and they have a meaningful task to work on. Many male-dominated companies tend to look down on motherhood and the mothers at their place of work. Eradicate this culture if it is practiced in your firm and ensure the career growth of these women is not stalled. When your female employees are due for promotions, do not withdraw from them their right to be promoted.
3- Pressure
Why Women will leave because of Pressure?
A female employee may leave your organization if she is not given processing time to make decisions. Unlike men, women tend to take time to compare the advantages of a decision to the disadvantages before they arrive at their conclusion. If your company is male-dominated, this might result in pressuring your female employees into making decisions they are not ready to make. This, in turn, can make them avoid decision-making roles. And as a lot of professional women are ambitious, they will leave your company for one where she is given the time she needs to make decisions.
How To Prevent It
A healthy work-life balance eliminates all extraneous pressure. Allow your female employees professional compromise when it is needed. Remember that the growth of your followers is a pointer of your great leadership skills. Know when to be patient and supportive of the women in the team.
4- Values and Culture
Why Women will leave because of Values and Culture
Women are planners in homes. They decide and determine how to run their homes. This instills a sense of culture, discipline, and value in them. If they work in a company where the culture and value don’t align with their own, they will leave in search of companies that reflect their values and culture.
How To Prevent It
When hiring, define and spell out your organization’s culture. A company with positive values should ensure that these values are practiced and the female employees are a significant part of the process.
These are our top Four reasons why ambitious women will leave your company and ways to prevent that.
What about you? Why do you decide to leave an organization? and the most important question, what makes you stay?