Featured in Personnel Today, Priscila Pereira Law, co-founder of Inclusive Leadership Company. The article examines the treatment of childless employees and how employers should create an inclusive workplace that avoids discriminating against those who choose not to have a family or are unable to.
The article highlights how a significant minority (around 18% of women and 25% of men) will not have children, however this group tends to be overlooked when we consider workplace inequality.
Experiences of inequality for childless employees include being subjected to personal questions about their reproductive status, for childless women specifically, they can often experience ‘othering’ where they are excluded for not having a family, with an increased likelihood of experiencing workplace incivility, aggression and be labelled with negative stereotypes. There can also be an expectation that childless employees will work extra hours, have reduced access to flexible working and have their preferences around annual leave deprioritised compared to colleagues with children.
In response to the question, what can organisations do to ensure that childless workers are not discriminated against, Dr Priscila Pereira Law, co-founder of the Inclusive Leadership Company highlighted how organisations could be more inclusive to everyone, including those who are childless:
“Inclusive organisations don’t misrepresent communities they serve in decision-making and use the demographics of their clients and employee base to inform the composition of design teams responsible for creating processes, working practices, policies and products.
“Minoritised groups tend to be misrepresented in decision-making for most companies, which leads to dysfunctional designs where biases are ‘baked in’, and exclusion becomes systemic. Once biases and discrimination are baked in, you can’t fix them; you have an incubator of inequity, so you need to start your design again.”
Therefore, when designing inclusive workplaces, it is critical that diverse views are sought, with representation from all types of employees, including those who are childless.
You can access the original article here: https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/childless-employee-edi-unseen-minority/
