What will 2016 hold in store for working women?

7 January 2016 06:30 pm Views - 1872

Another year has dawned – one that undoubtedly is filled with hope and aspirations - aspirations of better career moves, bigger pay and outstanding opportunities. Yet, for the world’s women, what does it mean to enter the new year – are they going to be able to overcome gender issues as they should?
We know most women struggle in bridging the gap in their careers – and that’s a gap that will stay on for a long time. How do we manage a career, children and the home front – all in one go? What about going back to work after childbirth – or managing the years of children growing up, attending extra classes and needing the kind of support only a mother could give?

The bottom line is that no matter what strides women may make in the work place, some things are always going to be there. There’s no easy way to manage the home front-office equation, without a considerable amount of give and take. Yet, that is exactly when you believe you need to put in the extra hours and the extra effort.

No matter what the so-called trends and stats show, there will always be the challenges for the women at the work place – 2016 will be no exception. There will be many obstacles to overcome. Often, what can make a real change is not the big picture but the small, manageable changes each organisation can make towards broadbasing their gender approach. 

It might seem fashionable to include gender in the politically correct check list but companies can go beyond committing on paper to address the real issues faced by women at the work place. For an example, there are many single mothers in Sri Lanka as well, who must play the role of by father and mother. They may have needs such as attending parent-teacher meetings and medical appointments. How many men in charge of departments and sections understand this aspect of parenting? Not many. 

The lessons are always there in the back yard to be learnt and implemented – if a real need is felt. Social statistics point in the direction of more women empowered at the work place yet few opt to make it to the top. Those dynamics can change over time but for now, they seem real enough to rule out major changes in the status quo women.


Changing trends 
Today, more and more young women are getting themselves educated, in pursuit of dream jobs. And they are getting there – ask any mid-career young woman about settling down and she is more likely to be interested in completing her MBA than marriage and children. This too is a dangerous trend – soon enough they find out that their biological clock is ticking and that marriage and children cannot be put off forever in pursuit of a dynamic career. That bus leaves sooner than you think.

So, as another year rolls around and a new set of hopes and visions enable us to take a fresh look at 2016, what hints can we pick, what insights can gleam? Are there ways in which we can mitigate gender issues better for the women who go to work? Can we try to understand better the dynamics of developing a career while also managing what must come naturally to us as mothers and wives?

Very often, the decision is yours. You can choose to put your career on the back burner as many women have done and give that time to raising the children. If you are lucky enough to have help as in grandparents, then you can of course give priority to career goals – keeping in mind that however caring the grandparents maybe, the kids will still love to have you around. You can always slow peddle a little during the years when they are growing up and then let the career pick up steam – kids do grow up faster than you think.

As you will discover soon enough, statistics have little meaning when what you are facing is your career and your choice. It is about what you choose to be engaged in and what, in your mind, will be the best for you.

There are other avenues too – change of career, entrepreneurship, work from home – all of which are excellent choices. But one needs to find the exact niche, the specific area in which you want to excel at.

In the end, it is your choice. It must ideally be a choice you can look back and be content about. It must be a choice over which you should not have many regrets.

Happy New Year and may 2016 be full of hope for all!

(Nayomini Weerasooriya, a senior journalist, writer and a PR professional, can be contacted at nayominiweerasooriya@gmail.com)