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women in the workplace 2021

Burnout: the price women have to pay for climbing the corporate ladder

A year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic, women have made some gains in representation, especially in senior leadership; but at a very heavy price: women are now significantly more burned out – and increasingly more so than men, a new report by McKinsey & Co. and LeanIn.org has found.

According to the 2021 Women in the Workplace report, that surveyed more than 65,000 workers across 423 organizations in the U.S., the proportion of women in the corporate workforce didn’t decline significantly last year, while the number of women holding senior roles increased.

In the last five years, women’s representation has increased at all levels. Women hold nearly 50% of all entry level jobs and around a quarter of C-suite roles, each up a few percentage points from 2016.

But authors warn that the representation of women is only part of the story. The pandemic continues to take a toll on employees, especially women, who are even more burned out than they were a year ago. And burnout is escalating much faster among them than men…

Among the surveyees, one in three women said they have considered downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce this year, compared to 1 in 4 who said this a few months into the pandemic. Additionally, 4 in 10 women have considered leaving their company or switching jobs – and high employee turnover in recent months suggests that many of them are following through.

“Our concerns are the impact of pandemic burnout on women long-term, and what companies need to do in response,” said Rachel Thomas, co-founder and chief executive officer of Lean In.

Women’s representation has increased across the pipeline since 2016. However, women – especially women of color – remain significantly underrepresented in leadership.

Women made gains in representation last year

In spite of the challenges of the pandemic, women’s representation had improved across most of the corporate pipeline at the end of 2020. Even though this is an encouraging sign – especially after an incredibly difficult year – there are also persistent gaps in the pipeline: promotions at the first step up to manager are not equitable, and women of color lose ground in representation at every level.

The study shows that there is still a “broken rung” at the first step up to manager: for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 86 women are promoted.

Additionally, the gains in representation for women overall haven’t translated to gains for women of color, who continue to lose ground at every step in the pipeline. Between the entry level and the C-suite, the representation of women of color drops off by more than 75%. As a result, women of color account for only 4% of C-suite leaders, a number that hasn’t moved significantly in the past three years.

Women are more burned out - and more so than men

Perhaps the most alarming finding of the study is that the pandemic burnout is nipping at this slow, but steady, progress women have made in the corporate ladder over the last five years.

42% of women said they have been often or almost always burned out in 2021, compared to 32% a year ago. And the gap in burnout between women and men has almost doubled.

Additionally, in the past year, 1 in 3 women has considered leaving the workforce or downshifting their careers – a significant increase from 1 in 4 in the first few months of the pandemic.

woman suffering burnout

42% of women say they have been often or almost always burned out in 2021, compared to 32% a year ago.

Women of color continue to have a worse experience at work

As already mentioned, the gains in representation for women overall haven’t translated to gains for women of color. Even after a year of increased focus on DEI and racial equity in corporate America, women of color continue to face significant bias and discrimination at work. They are experiencing similar types of microaggressions, at similar relative frequencies, as they were two years ago, according to researchers.

And although the number of white employees who identify as allies to women of color has increased over the past year, the number taking key allyship actions has not. While all women are more likely than men to face microaggressions that undermine them professionally – such as being interrupted or having their judgment questioned – many women of color experience them at a higher rate. Also, women of color are much more likely than white women to face disrespectful and “othering” microaggressions that reinforce harmful stereotypes or cast them as outsiders.

According to the study, these experiences can take a heavy toll: women who regularly experience microaggressions are twice as likely as those who don’t to be burned out, more than twice as likely to report feeling negatively about their job, and almost three times as likely to say they’ve struggled to concentrate at work in the past few months due to stress.

Key takeaway: The impact of the last year and half on women is still far from clear. But the authors of the report warn that the risks for women – and the companies that depend on their leadership – are very real.

Moonshot News is an independent European news website for all IT, Media and Advertising professionals, powered by women and with a focus on driving the narrative for diversity, inclusion and gender equality in the industry.

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