1. Celebrating Women’s Day at work is an essential opportunity for organizations to recognize the contributions of their female employees and promote gender diversity and equality.
2. Effective ways to celebrate include hosting inspirational talks by successful women, offering wellness sessions, organizing social media challenges, and conducting webinars on financial well-being.
3. Additionally, recognizing female employees’ achievements and engaging in virtual and offline activities can boost motivation and demonstrate the organization’s commitment to an inclusive work environment.
4. These celebrations can enhance employee morale and employer branding.
Like many other spheres of life, women employees and leaders have achieved significant success in the corporate sector. Most organizations attach considerable importance to celebrating Women’s Day on March 8th each year as a tribute to the efforts, struggles, achievements, and successes of their women employees.
Over the past several decades, women have increasingly become integral to most organizations’ workforce, leading to greater diversity.
Even in industries that have traditionally been considered a man’s forte, women have attained considerable success.
Studies show that organizations that have women leaders tend to demonstrate higher growth and profitability.
Many organizations have found women to be better administrators and leaders as compared to their male counterparts.
However, despite the growing number of women in the workforce globally, they still face considerable discrimination and are often denied vital roles and responsibilities.
According to a recent survey by McKinsey across 60 major corporations, women comprised 53% of the entry-level workforce with the number declining to 40% at the managerial level and only 35% working as directors.
The number of female vice-presidents, senior vice-presidents, and c-suite executives was found to be 27%, 24%, and 19% respectively.
Today, most organizations are committed to building an inclusive and diverse workforce where equal opportunities are provided to all employees, irrespective of gender.
Read Guide for Ensuring Diversity and Inclusiveness at Workplace
Women’s Day provides organizations with the perfect opportunity to acknowledge the efforts and contributions of their female employees and make them feel equally valued.
It is an excellent platform for organizations to keep their female employees motivated despite the multiple challenges that they face daily.
By celebrating Women’s Day, organizations can send out a strong message to their female workforce about their commitment towards creating a fair, safe and inclusive work environment with equal growth opportunities.
International Women’s Day is celebrated in many ways at a global tech company headquartered in Ireland.
Multiple activities are held during the week, including talks by women achievers, hackathons, talent contests, and recognition for women employees.
One unique way the company celebrates Women’s Day is by recognizing the contributions of its female employees to the business and culture of the organization.
Employees can recognize their female coworkers through the HiFives employee recognition platform throughout the week under various categories:
1. Those who spread positivity
2. Bring in innovative ideas
3. Resolve issues proactively
4. Lead the way
5. Mentor and guide others
The recipients of the recognition receive e-cards via email. The recognition is also published on the HiFives platform and the Mircosoft Teams channel. Other employees can like and comment on these posts.
Celebrating Woman’s Day provides organizations with an excellent opportunity to express their gratitude and commitment to their female employees.
So, discussed below are a few practical ways to celebrate this day virtually:
1. Inspirational Talks by Prominent Women Achievers
2. Wellness Sessions for Women Employees
3. Social Media Challenges for Women Employees
4. Session on Financial Wellbeing for Women Employees
5. Recognize the Contributions and Achievements of Women Employees
One of the impediments to success for women employees in organizations is the lack of access to female role models whom they can look up to for inspiration.
Hence, organizations can consider inviting prominent and successful female professionals for interactive sessions with their women employees on Women’s Day.
These women achievers would narrate stories of their struggles and achievements,
They would share tips and suggestions on overcoming challenges as professionals.
Therefore, these sessions can prove inspirational and give the participants the motivation and confidence to face their personal and professional challenges.
With the growing importance of health and fitness among employees, organizations can consider having online Yoga, Pilates, meditation, or other fitness sessions for their female employees on Women’s Day.
Organizations can also do webinars for their women employees with wellness experts such as dieticians, nutritionists, and medical professionals.
Such interactive sessions can provide a good platform for their female employees to gain better knowledge about health and lifestyle.
Read more: 5 Initiatives to Improve Employee Wellness at Work
One fun and exciting way to celebrate the spirit of womanhood is by organizing various social media challenges on Women’s Day.
Organizations can choose exciting themes, such as creativity, fashion, dance, music, etc., to which most of their female workforce can relate. That helps to bring out their talent and individuality.
Ensuring the financial well-being of female employees is as important as their physical, mental, and emotional wellness.
Hence, they could organize webinars by personal finance experts for female employees on managing their financial well-being.
Being able to control and manage their finances efficiently will likely boost their confidence and self-worth.
Perhaps the best way to celebrate Women’s Day is to recognize the contributions of female employees to business growth and success.
Hence, organizations can consider sending online gifts to all their female employees.
They can also reward their high-performing female employees and organize virtual awards ceremonies to felicitate them.
In addition to the above virtual methods of celebrating Women’s Day, organizations may consider offline celebrations wherever possible.
These options could range from a dress code for the day to screening a women-centric film.
It could also be an in-office make-up and grooming session, a talent show, a special lunch, gift hampers, etc.
By celebrating Women’s Day, organizations can make a strong statement about promoting gender diversity and equality in the workplace.
This can help enhance their female employees’ motivation, commitment, efficiency, and performance and drive business growth.
Lead author: Sagar Chaudhuri, the Co-Founder and CEO of HiFives. He is an HR Tech Evangelist with over 25 years of corporate and entrepreneurship experience. In the past, Sagar has worked in leadership roles with companies such as Genpact, Infosys, and ICICI Bank. He has an engineering degree from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA from IIM Lucknow. Connect on LinkedIn
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