Strategies from women working during Covid-19

I felt a mixture of anger and disappointment when I read this year’s Women in the Workplace report, an annual study that tracks the progress of women in corporate America. The report – led by McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org – describes how Covid-19 threatens to deepen inequalities, compound pre-existing pressures, and roll back progress for women in the workplace. Although this study focuses on women in corporate America, many of the gendered effects of the pandemic that are described transcend national and professional boundaries.

“Across all the data about how employees are faring during the Covid-19 crisis, two trends stand out. First, women are having a worse experience than men. Second, women aren’t all having identical experiences. Black women, Latinas, Asian women, LGBTQ+ women, and women with disabilities are facing distinct challenges.” WITW 2020

Why did I feel anger and disappointment? Women continue to be grossly underrepresented in leadership; women of color – and black women in particular – continue to be subjected to microaggressions which limit advancement and increase marginalization; persistent bias against mothers continues to create no-win situations for working moms; the findings go on and on.

My next reaction was a strong and urgent desire to do something productive with and for women. That “something” evolved into Working Women Working it Out.

Working Women Working it Out was an online event I organized in partnership with Helen Krug von Nidda, a talented coach and facilitator, and dear friend. Our aim was to create the space and structure for professional women to talk about their experiences working during Covid-19 and share the strategies they’re using to navigate this unprecedented moment. A professionally diverse group of women from more than five countries joined the event. Below are some of the highlights from that event.

Power, people, pace, permission

Four broad themes emerged during the conversation:

1. Power. How can we regain the control we’ve lost at work because of Covid-19?
2. People. How can we ensure connection and collaboration with our colleagues in a virtual space?
3. Pace. How can we establish a sustainable pace, rhythm and routine to our work?
4. Permission. How can we realistically redefine what we expect of ourselves and our colleagues?

Within each of these themes, the group discussed a multitude of challenges and strategies. Two challenges which relate to pace and permission, and which came up repeatedly were: 1) the increased number of meetings people are being asked to attend, and 2) the implicit and explicit pressure to be constantly online and immediately responsive to colleagues.

Below are a few of the strategies women described using to address those challenges.

Too many meetings – no time to execute

1. Protect your time by blocking out time in your calendar to execute on tasks.
2. Recognize that time can feel different in a virtual space compared to a shared physical space. People may have less stamina for long, virtual meetings and distractions and intrusions may be higher. As a result, there are diminishing returns on having long virtual meetings and lots of them. Discuss the challenge of “too many meetings” with your team and brainstorm alternative ways to collaborate. Be sure to establish norms around meeting length and number of meetings within your teams.
3. Apply best practices for virtual meetings.
4. Use scheduling apps to streamline and reduce the time you spend arranging meetings.

Always online, immediately responsive 

1.  Address the root cause of the problem. Examine where the pressure to be constantly online is coming from. Is it a symptom of mistrust? An indication that people are struggling to prioritize and coordinate tasks? Something else? Talk to people and reflect to find the answers, and then problem solve to address the root issues.
2. Establish norms around response time with colleagues.
3. Reflect on your own behaviors. In what ways are you perpetuating the pressure to be online all the time? What changes can you make that would decrease pressure and create more realistic expectations around response time?

Access the full list of challenges and strategies here.

Covid-19 is creating countless challenges and losses in the workplace, many of which are disproportionately affecting women. But there are strategies that can help. For me, finding them started with good data, honest conversation, and a group of smart, resourceful, resilient women.