How Women Leaving the Workforce is Affecting Workplace Culture

Women play a huge role in the workplace and their exodus is clearly a detriment to workplace culture COVID-19 has not been particularly kind to Canadian businesses. It has not been kind to employees either — particularly women. A recent study by RBC indicated that between February and October 2020, more than 20,000 Canadian women “fell out” of the workforce, whereas almost 68,000 men joined. Two main age cohorts are leaving. Of the 20-to-24 age group, more than three-quarters were out of the labour force as of October mainly because they enrolled in college or university. More worrying, however, is the 35-to-39 age group. In this group, women with children under the age of six composed 41% of the labour force in February but accounted for 67% of the exit. Surprising? Not to Bipasha Baruah, Canada Research Chair in Global Women’s Issues and Professor at Western University. She read the study and notes that the women with the older age range “correlate more strongly with what’s happening on the home front.” Baruah herself has an “extremely supportive spouse” and one 10-year-old child. “There have been moments in the last nine months,” she says, “where it’s just all been too much. Both of you are trying to work from home and also trying to manage your child’s education,” she says. “I can entirely understand how women in that age group ... are finding it impossible to pull it all together.” If you recognize the book it’s because it’s the same old story — many women take on not only paid work outside the home but also the bulk of unpaid domestic work — i.e., child care, housekeeping, meal planning and elder care. Women feel that their hands are tied. Family comes first. This position, understandable though it may seem as there is no reliable relief elsewhere to compensate, will significantly impact the workplace. How will workplace culture change with fewer women in the office? Women Are Missing First, consider what women bring to work culture. “Women may not necessarily bring anything different in terms of soft skills or more compassion to the office,” says Nita Chhinzer, Associate Professor in Human Resource Management and Business Consulting, Department of Management, at the University of Guelph. “But they are bringing diversity of thought and diversity of perspective.” They “bring a broader perspective and a bigger awareness of systemic issues from a different political, geopolitical and social lens,” she says. Systemic issues such as the perspective women have about what incentivises certain kinds of behaviours and motivates others are critical to raise. Chhinzer points to an overly obvious example. “Like if HR was all driven by men, then decisions about maternity leave, paternity leave, work-from-home — those wouldn’t even make the table,” she says. With very limited diversity of views and perspective, “group think” would increase. “When we have diversity of perspectives, we’re more likely to challenge the status quo, which results in better decision-making,” says Chhinzer. It’s better decision-making simply because “you have more points of divergent thought, you have different perspectives, and you have different people challenging. And even if it leads to the same outcome that was originally proposed, the outcome is more well thought out and better defended.” Alison Konrad, Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Ivey Business School at Western University, agrees. In her study of women on boards, she says when there are “more women in senior leadership positions, those companies are more likely to have more of a focus on corporate social responsibility, and they’re more likely to have work/life flexibility benefits available broadly to all employees. They’re also more likely to implement equality, diversity and inclusion programs.” With women leaving the workforce in greater numbers, and potentially not returning, Chhinzer says that will have both short- and long-term impacts. Short-term, it will result in “work intensification” for the workers remaining in the workplace. “As push for more productivity of those workers, then the imbalance in traditional non-workplaces, such as the home, will become even more intensified.” Longer-term, “if this perpetuates year over year, it will be a problem because we know prolonged absences from work — for all genders — result in significant underemployment upon return,” Chhinzer says. “And, if that prolonged absence from work or the period you’re no longer part of the labour force is disproportionately affecting women, then five years down the road we’re going to have a massive step back in perceptions of equity.” Stepping out of your career for a while slows your leadership development path. Konrad concurs: “We know that. In fact, it can cut off your advance in leadership. We’ll see growth in the movement of women in leading positions in organizations significantly slowed; we may even see a backsliding.” Succession Planning Another area that is impacting work culture is succession planning. “Look at the progress we’ve been making with women’s representation in top management teams, in C-suites, on boards of directors — without contribution to skills development and the currency of those competencies, in three to five years, I would anticipate, we’d see a big drop because we aren’t preparing them for that role.” And we can’t, simply because they’re not in the workplace. “Those jobs require you to be an active member of the workforce, be current with your competencies, and to have that experience, the networking that comes from being at work, that reputation,” says Chhinzer. “Networking is critical to career progression.” For her part, Konrad worries about “women’s promotions up the leadership hierarchy. It’s very competitive,” she says. “Women drop out at the middle. I did a study that showed really damaging drop-off between middle management and the executive level, and this is just going to be worse.” Baruah also shares her concern for women in management. “This is already a huge issue in Canada,” she says. “We find men step into management positions far earlier than women, at every age group, including below the age of 25, where twice as many men are called into management positions.” Neutralizing Aggressive Behaviours There’s also the general tone of the workplace. “Women have the ability to de-escalate arguments,” says Chhinzer. She points to research from first responders, where, in a situation of domestic violence, first responders will send in a female police officer rather than a male. “An aggressive male perpetrator will increase aggressiveness levels if a male enters but decrease aggressiveness levels when a female enters,” she says. Translating that to the workplace, if there are fewer women, “there aren’t counterbalances to neutralize aggression …. We can get into those traditional macho, inappropriate, sexist subcultures in the workplace because there are no checks and balances,” says Chhinzer. Just the presence of women in the workplace has improved the character of the culture. Konrad points to research on the presence of women in teams at all levels. The research indicated that simply with “the presence of a woman in the room — just being there — everybody was more polite. There was less aggressive language used.” And, Konrad indicates, research shows that when workplaces drop below 40% women, that’s when there’s going to be more masculineness to the culture. Women’s exodus from the workforce is clearly a detriment to workplace culture. Women play a huge role in the culture of the workplace — whether that be leading important initiatives like corporate social responsibility and equality, diversity, and inclusion programs or neutralizing aggressive situations by their mere presence. It is also a detriment to themselves and the strides they’ve made since a large proportion of women began entering the workforce more than a half-century ago. Plainly, if this exodus continues, we are in for a change. And not a good one. Let’s just hope women can find their way back. And maybe, with a genuine invitation, you might be able to help.

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How Women Leaving the Workforce is Affecting Workplace Culture

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Brooke Smith

Women play a huge role in the workplace and their exodus is clearly a detriment to workplace culture

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