Dive Brief:
- A quarter of men said they believe they have more responsibilities than others with the same job title, according to a new survey from Clutch. Eighteen percent of women said the same thing.
- Clutch attributed the difference in survey results between men and women to "broader workplace issues" concerning the role of women. Citing experts and the Harvard Business Review, the company said that women struggle with career advancement because office "household tasks," such as emptying the dishwasher and buying birthday cards, tend to fall to them, Clutch said. Women are sometimes confronted with the "motherhood penalty," the idea that "working mothers are perceived as less productive and professionally dedicated than men, women without children, and women with grown children," according to Clutch.
- Only 23% of respondents in the survey said that their title accurately reflects their work and responsibilities. Clutch said that by crafting accurate and transparent job descriptions, employers can help workers and outside stakeholders understand every employee's role and decrease the likelihood of people thinking that men have more responsibilities at work than women.
Dive Insight:
An overwhelming number of survey respondents in a Bright Horizons' Modern Family Index released earlier this year described working moms as superior multitaskers, better listeners, more highly skilled in time management and more in control during crises than others in the workplace. Yet, despite these accolades, the index showed that mothers of newborns or young children ae penalized for taking time out for their families, whereas men are not. In fact, 72% of respondents in the index — including men and women — agreed that working mothers are often punished for being parents but working fathers are not.
A distinction women frequently hold is being the primary caregivers in their families, which can raise the hurdles they experience in advancing their careers. But employers can support working mothers by openly recognizing their contributions and leadership skills, as expressed in Bright Horizons' index; offering essential benefits like extended maternity leave and emergency childcare and facilitating their return to work by making lactation rooms available and adopting phased return-to-work policies.
Statistics show, however, that the talent pipeline is still losing women, many of whom have opted to drop out of the workplace than struggle with the bias against motherhood and work-life balance. Again, employers can step in by offering supportive benefits. For example, Ernst & Young found in recent research that turnover among female employees fell when the company began offering fathers the same amount of paid parental leave as working mothers.
Workplaces in which women in leadership roles find themselves as the only woman among men in meetings, on committees and in other situations risk losing them, according to a recent survey by Lean In.org and McKinsey & Company. This "Lone Ranger" status was not only shown to be worse for women of color and LGBTQ women, but it also came with higher incidences of sexual misconduct, being mistaken for lower-level employees and feeling pressured to perform, prove their proficiency and be always on guard at work.