Five Ways To Create A Workplace Culture For Women To Thrive
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by Kristi Riordan, Chief Operating Officer at Flatiron School, a division of WeWork.
2017 wasn’t a great year of headlines for women. We’ve been reminded just how morally bankrupt people in positions of power can be. But we’ve also seen how much power one individual voice has. As we improve workplace culture for women, we can’t stop after defining what “bad” looks like or after determining how to root it out at the core — we must also create a vision for what it will take for women to thrive.
Here are five things advocates and allies of women can do in this moment of #MeToo to improve workplace culture for women:
1. Build Social Capital
Social capital is an important but unwritten rule of success. It’s the result of being let in and being able to create connections with people. It’s those relationships and their advocacy that create opportunity via a new project, promotion or job. The truth is, hard work matters a lot, but for those well outside the majority power center (women and minorities), social capital can be difficult to gain. We need to establish cultural and social norms that give women the connections and context they need to succeed and move up. Women can create new norms, build new groups to cultivate connections and walk into the room and invite other women once there. Men can open the door, be flexible toward new norms and fight the fearful #MeToo backlash of being alone with a woman that will only create barriers for women to build social capital.
