6 Ways To Celebrate Women's Appreciation Day

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A record-break­ing four mil­lion peo­ple left their jobs in April 2021, spark­ing some­thing experts have dubbed the ​“Great Res­ig­na­tion.” One sur­vey found that more than 40% of employ­ees are con­sid­er­ing leav­ing their cur­rent position.

The rea­sons for this aren’t sur­pris­ing. When the pan­dem­ic start­ed, white-col­lar work­ers went remote, and blue-col­lar work­ers were expect­ed to put them­selves on the front line to keep every­thing running.

Now, peo­ple are burned out, and they’re look­ing for com­pa­nies that gen­uine­ly care about their well-being. They want high­er salaries, greater flex­i­bil­i­ty and more per­son­al ful­fill­ment — and they’re will­ing to leave their cur­rent jobs to find it.

Women were hit espe­cial­ly hard dur­ing this pan­dem­ic work­force shift. In fact, in the last year, near­ly three mil­lion women didn’t just leave their jobs — they left the work­force altogether.

Now more than ever, it’s crit­i­cal to show women they’re appre­ci­at­ed and val­ued in the workplace.

6 Ways To Celebrate Women’s Appreciation Day

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Social media shoutouts, mean­ing­ful gifts and lunch on the com­pa­ny are all nice ways to cel­e­brate employ­ees, but there are ways to go beyond the stan­dard. In this blog post, we talk about 6 excel­lent ways to com­mem­o­rate women in the work­place today and every day.

1. Eliminate the Gaps in Pay and Leadership

On aver­age, women still only make 82% of what their male peers earn, and despite receiv­ing the major­i­ty of degrees every year and com­pris­ing 47% of the work­force, women are still pro­mot­ed less often than men. In fact, there’s only one female CEO for every four male CEOs, and only 5% of For­tune 500 com­pa­nies have women leaders.

To real­ly appre­ci­ate the women in the office, com­pa­nies will need to advo­cate for and pro­vide equal­i­ty in salaries, pro­mo­tions and lead­er­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties. When women see their com­pa­nies tak­ing these strides, they’ll feel gen­uine­ly val­ued, because they’ll know they’re being paid what they’re worth and being pro­mot­ed on their merit.

2. Advocate for Gender Equality

Dur­ing the height of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, women were more like­ly to have been laid off or con­sid­ered leav­ing due to increased respon­si­bil­i­ties at home. To ensure women have equal oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­tin­ue to progress in their career, com­pa­nies need to reex­am­ine exist­ing poli­cies and ensure there are equi­table oppor­tu­ni­ties for inclusion.

Some pro­grams to con­sid­er include:

• Paid Mater­ni­ty Leave
• Pro­grams to Advance Women Leaders
• Flex­i­ble Work Schedules
• Inclu­sion and Diver­si­ty Training
• Men­tor­ship Oppor­tu­ni­ties for Women

Ulti­mate­ly, busi­ness­es need to look into adding pro­grams and ben­e­fits that allow women to bal­ance their house­hold lives and work­ing lives har­mo­nious­ly while pro­vid­ing means for career advancement.

3. Have a Group Conversation With Women in the Office

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Some­times, the best way to get infor­ma­tion about how the women in the office feel is to ask them direct­ly. Com­pa­nies should con­sid­er hav­ing a group con­ver­sa­tion where the women in the office are encour­aged to dis­cuss their spe­cif­ic pain points with cur­rent com­pa­ny policy.

This con­ver­sa­tion can be in-per­son and for­mal or some­thing a bit more low-key, like a vir­tu­al cof­fee chat. If the women in the office are hes­i­tant to share their can­did beliefs, super­vi­sors should con­sid­er an anony­mous sur­vey option instead. Either way, get­ting feed­back is extreme­ly ben­e­fi­cial, as employ­ers can see what is going right and what can be improved upon.

4. Recognize Individuality

Too often, com­pa­nies and male lead­ers make the mis­take of lump­ing women togeth­er in one group. How­ev­er, women are dif­fer­ent and have dif­fer­ent needs in the work­place. For instance, a woman near­ing retire­ment will have very dif­fer­ent needs than a woman just enter­ing the work­force, just like the women with chil­dren will have very dif­fer­ent needs than those with­out them.

Com­pa­nies have to look for ways to val­ue all of their female employ­ees on an indi­vid­ual lev­el. One way to do that is via a cus­tomized lifestyle ben­e­fits plat­form, like Fringe, which allows peo­ple to choose the ben­e­fits that best suit their lives today.

5. Involve Everyone

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When talk­ing about Women’s Appre­ci­a­tion Day, many com­pa­nies just focus on the women in the office. Instead, busi­ness­es should get every­one of all gen­der iden­ti­ties involved in the con­ver­sa­tion. Here’s why.

Research shows that when men are involved in gen­der inclu­sion activ­i­ties, 96% of the com­pa­nies see progress in gen­der equal­i­ty. How­ev­er, if men do not par­tic­i­pate, only 30% of the com­pa­nies see improve­ment. This is a sub­stan­tial dif­fer­ence that def­i­nite­ly war­rants full-office involve­ment in all gen­der inclu­sive initiatives.

6. Support Women-Owned Businesses

Anoth­er way com­pa­nies can show sup­port on Women’s Appre­ci­a­tion Day is to sup­port women-owned busi­ness­es. If pos­si­ble, com­pa­nies should aim to part­ner with more women-owned com­pa­nies. Doing busi­ness with these com­pa­nies is a strong sig­nal that a com­pa­ny cares about con­tribut­ing to equal eco­nom­ic empow­er­ment and representation.

Anoth­er sim­i­lar way to show sup­port is through dona­tions to orga­ni­za­tions that sup­port women. Some com­pa­nies might choose mon­e­tary dona­tions, while oth­ers will find ways to part­ner with these orga­ni­za­tions. The most impor­tant thing is to illus­trate a sol­id com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing women.

Make a Meaningful Impact on Women’s Appreciation Day

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Ulti­mate­ly, to tru­ly show appre­ci­a­tion on Women’s Appre­ci­a­tion Day, com­pa­nies need to work towards equal­i­ty, rep­re­sen­ta­tion and pro­vid­ing mean­ing­ful recog­ni­tion to their women in their workplace.

Oth­er­wise, they might lose them to com­pa­nies that do a bet­ter job at rec­og­niz­ing the women in their work­place. With a pro­gram like Fringe, you can also offer per­son­al­ized ben­e­fits for all of the women in your com­pa­ny, prov­ing to them how val­ued and respect­ed they tru­ly are.

Take a look at Fringe’s web­site for more ways to show appre­ci­a­tion for your female employ­ees. Sched­ule a demo to dis­cov­er the many lifestyle ben­e­fits Fringe has to offer.