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Gender Challenges in the workplace

I have a been a long time advocate for women in the workplace. In the last few years, it keeps being brought to my attention how men also need attention. Men have been supported and sponsored into career progression but they face a different set of challenges than women.

We know women face challenges in regards to:

  • negotiating salaries
  • feeling understood
  • confidence
  • feeling valued
  • being sponsored into promotions.

Research has shown that men face challenges in regards to:

  • Choosing work over family and the loss of personal relationships
  • Understanding how their gender is working against them
  • Managing stress
  • Feeling inadequate and unworthy when things aren’t going well career wise.

What are other challenges that you see that women and men face in the workplace?

Your ideas and your plans but who is getting the credit?

You developed a great strategy for this big project you are working on.

There is certainty that it will improve processes. It will increase revenue and it exceeds all of the current organizational goals.

You are working behind the scenes to really lift the organization to a new level.

Your colleague (or boss) presents the idea. You watch them present it. You are bursting with pride. Your passion for the organization has been the driving force in all your contributions.

The presentation is over. Everyone is congratulating your boss for the idea, the vision and the potential of what it will do for the organization.

You watch with pride. You always put the organization first. You want the organization to do well.

Inside you have this gnawing feeling that something isn’t right.

You are thinking to yourself, it isn’t that you need flashing lights to feel the appreciation and recognition. You acknowledge that there may be some need for significance there, that you do want acknowledgement for your contribution. Your confused. You were taught to give selflessly. You were taught to never put yourself ahead of others, so why do you feel nauseated like someone has discredited your self worth.

(Disclaimer: this scenario can happen in the workplace or at home. Many a times there is one family member who is doing the bulk of the work and not getting recognition)

You fell deflated. You feel sort of like a victim of circumstances. Most of all you are wondering “why can’t I yell out that was me, I am the one who is doing everything. Look at me. Look at what I contribute on a daily basis.”

Well, that is one way to gain the recognition.

The second way is to acknowledge your own contributions. Recognize when you are given opportunities to shine that you take those. Yes, that means when someone does appreciate you, you openly receive the appreciation.

Take the opportunity to acknowledge the efforts of your team mates who have contributed, when you are asked to highlight your work. As we move up the hierarchy or build anything of substance, it is the collaborative work of a group of people that shift the way that the world functions. Acknowledge and recognize all those people around you, who like you, would like to be acknowledged. There is a need in everyone to feel significant at some level. It is one of the 6 basic human needs. Be grateful for all the contributions – big or small – that are made around you.

Back to you receiving recognition, sometimes that recognition does not come from the source that you are wanting it from. The recognition comes from within and from your connection to the universe. At your core, you know how you contributed. Saying this, own the contribution you made. Claim responsibility of your contributions. Speak about them and highlight them. It is your turn to shine in this world. The more you own what you know and do, the more you give permission for others to be powerful.

Yes it sucks when someone else takes credit for the contribution you made. Next time, visit the possibility of making that presentation together. Attend the meeting where that strategy is being discussed. Participate in the discussion and own what you know. Your reputation will precede you.

Allow your reputation to speak for itself.

Looking for strategies related to relationships, join me on the last Sunday of each month for the complimentary Relationship Circle.

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