How to Ensure Women Safety at Workplace

Harassment is a prevalent issue at workplaces. It is specifically a concern for women as it is more rampant among them, and they struggle more for their careers. Many women leave their jobs due to safety issues at work, and some continue to work just because they cannot afford to leave it. Some also agree to unfair favours seeing no other options.

Why aren’t women vocal about these incidents? There are several reasons, such as the fear of being bullied by co-workers, creating a negative image in the workplace, losing the job if superiors are involved, not wanting to be part of gossip etc.

To combat harassment at workplaces, companies must ensure that they have a policy in place. There are several ways of ensuring women’s safety at the workplace:

1.  Developing a Positive Corporate Culture

To ensure a safe environment where women can come forward and report any mistreatment, the work culture should be open and friendly. It must empower them to speak up. On the other hand, they must also create awareness among the team members about respecting their co-workers. Every culture goes from top-down, so managers are responsible for creating a culture where everyone can openly discuss their problems. Unless the team members don’t open up to each other, positive work culture is not created.

2. Existing Culture Assessment

To check whether the existing culture is strong enough to empower the female employees and the current safety level, an assessment is recommended to be done monthly or quarterly. This would bring up the hidden challenges and facts as well. A set of clear and direct questions like how comfortable you are working with your manager or how you would rate your openness with the co-workers is shared. The results of this assessment will clarify the existing level of safety and transparency. Based on that, new policies can be made.

3. Role of Manager in Cultivating Good Behaviour

Any misbehaviour is intolerable. Clear guidelines of conduct in the workplace must be given and taken care of by the manager. If any misbehaviour is observed by anyone at any level, it must not be tolerated. For instance, if a derogatory comment is passed during a team meeting, the manager should immediately call the person aside and point out the misconduct and give strict warnings to change behaviour. Facilitating a culture of intolerance and open discussion is the responsibility of a manager.

4. Training About Respect

Training can be provided on various behavioural topics such as dignity and respect, diversity, discrimination, empathy, awareness of gender biases, managing negative behaviour, etc. This will help to set behavioural expectations for employees. Role-playing may help in bringing up the real scenarios and actions to be taken while facing them. This will also help in building trust. Apart from this, the Harassment Prevention training should elaborate on the legal actions followed when these types of acts are reported.

5. Encourage Employees to Speak up

Consider an employee being bullied in a team; it can be immediately discouraged by a team member just by pointing it out. The same incident can be repeated if no action is taken the first time. Speaking up seems simple but is a strong solution to stopping these incidents. Therefore, all employees must be encouraged to report and speak up when they go through or witness harassment. For employees to be vocal about harassment, creating a safe space is crucial. If there are signs of pregnancy discrimination, let the abuser know the cases that can be filed against them, this way your employee who is a victim will feel that they are safe in the workplace and that you are willing to protect them.

6. Different Channels of Reporting

Most incidents are not reported since the HR is likely to be involved with the superior, which brings back the fear of losing the job. So, the organisation can outsource the harassment prevention department so that women can feel free to report them. An internal reporting system can be added to collect anonymous reports without the names of the reporting person. Also, few employees can be given employee wellness benefits in the form of counselling, training sessions and workshops to handle the emotional stress and provide support to victims.

You should provide more perks to your employees in addition to making the workplace a safe and clean environment. Healthcare benefits are essential, not just because they safeguard employees, but also because they let them relax. You want employees to feel comfortable returning, and healthcare benefits will help them do so. Employees will not only feel safe, but they will also be happier and more productive.

These steps could help organisations to maintain women’s safety at the workplace. A positive culture can prove to be a good start.

Furthermore, an employer can follow it up by other practices such as offering special employee benefits like wellness plans, group health insurance to ensure workplace mental and physical wellbeing.