WOMEN NEED SUPPORT

Women are confident, ambitious and ready for what is next. This is according to research by PricewaterhouseCoopers. However, many do not trust what their employers are telling them about promotions, or what helps or hurts their career. To improve your development opportunities, leaders need to focus on these three essential elements:

Transparency and trust: Women need to know where they stand so they can make their own case successfully and trust the feedback they get. Greater transparency will not only benefit women, it will foster a more inclusive environment, which gives women and men greater opportunities to fulfill their potential.

Strategic support: Women need the proactive networks of leaders and peers who will develop, promote and champion them, both at home and in the workplace. Women need dedicated sponsors and role models of both genders. This support will also work to underpin the self-advocacy women need to advance and succeed.

Life, family care and work: Women need employers to rethink their approach to helping them balance work, parenthood and family care, to prevent potential biases, and to provide effective organisational solutions. There is a move to redesign maternity and paternity leaves, but these efforts should be expanded, and best practices must be communicated more broadly.