How Women Leaders Prioritise Wellbeing For A Thriving Workforce

The way we work is experiencing an unprecedented shift. As stress and disengagement increase, some employees are reassessing their priorities. Specifically for women, these disruptions have intensified, causing acute issues around balance, equity, and well-being.

To create workplaces where women can truly thrive, leaders must strive to understand the layered realities women navigate due to their multiple personal and professional roles and responsibilities, as well as societal expectations.

An active approach to systematic reform, coupled with an intent to foster trust, inclusion, wellness, and career advancement, can notably ease burnout among women employees. Organisations must ensure this by addressing the full spectrum of support to women in the workplace. 

The overlooked setbacks of women  

For many women, burnout typically emerges long before they experience work hiccups. Women’s caregiving “second shift,” at home, alongside long working hours, is rarely recognised, adding to the cognitive burden that quietly creates burnout. 

Limited maternity resources, weak re-entry pathways, and outdated management practices lead to higher attrition of women, resulting in decreased workplace representation. Structural and cultural barriers also continue to restrict women's advancement in organisations. 

The lack of support for movement to senior roles and deeply embedded bias about women and their ability to lead result in subtle yet firm ceilings.

Paving the Road to Inclusive and Equitable Growth

Some organisations have addressed this by ensuring critical support for women through different life stages.

Benefits such as creches, on-site play schools, childcare subsidies, reimbursements for day care facilities, and special caregiving leaves help tackle the daily challenges of working mothers and women leaders.

Some of the Best Workplaces have strategically used flexibility options to enable women leaders to balance personal and professional commitments.

For instance, arranging flexible working hours or shifts, hybrid work models such as limited fixed schedules (3-day work weeks), or remote-first options with occasional on-site presence.  

While the presence of women across levels is a focus, the companies with best practices are particularly focused on ensuring they continue to build a strong pipeline of women leaders.

These companies are focused on creating a more equitable environment by ensuring they are tackling issues such as gender bias head-on and creating a truly equal playing field.

They have done the same by ensuring accountable and transparent practices in terms of equity in pay and promotion practices.

Empathetic management and access to senior leaders who can act as mentors or sponsors in leadership for women employees are also a great initiative to enable the growth of women in leadership goals.

The mentorship of strong women leaders, as well as creating great allies across the organisation, plays a strong role in enabling a consistent women leadership pipeline.

The right mentors can play a huge role in building confidence, creating shared experiences of their journey into leadership roles, enabling the right career conversations, and helping build and expand their networks.

For new mothers, organisations with structured returnship programs, wellness resources, counselling, and practical organisational support that provide mentorship and reskilling allow women to return to the workforce with confidence and equitable opportunity.

Women leaders are playing a vital role in introducing programs, initiatives, assessments, best practices, frameworks, and a stronger leadership pipeline to foster safe spaces for women and retain the best talent; sharpening competitive advantage and strengthening organisational performance, making it a win-win strategy for all.  

Authored by Delnaz Elavia, Managing Director, Great Place To Work.

Views expressed by the author are their own.