Good morning!
Frontline workers are often an afterthought in diversity efforts, putting them at a greater disadvantage than their corporate counterparts, according to a recent report from Catalyst in partnership with Accenture.
The report analyzed interviews with more than 70 women and managers in frontline roles across three industries—manufacturing, retail, and hospitality—and found that organizations often fail to meet their needs in the following ways:
— Failing to design workplace structures that are suitable for women, such as mandating ill-fitting uniforms and lacking facilities like lactation rooms or bathrooms with menstrual products.
— Assigning unpredictable schedules, long shifts, or rigid policies that don’t account for availability issues like caregiving needs.
“As an immigrant woman who’s living in the United States, an economically advanced country, it was honestly surprising to hear some of the poor conditions that women work under,” says Negin Sattari, Catalyst’s director of research and one of the study’s authors. “I don’t mean to depict a dark picture necessarily because some companies do good and create good conditions, but some really don’t.”
Researchers asked respondents questions intended to capture the realities of working on the frontlines, including how companies can improve physical work conditions, scheduling practices, advancement opportunities, and workplace culture.
“What was really interesting was to learn how many opportunities are actually available for companies to realistically improve conditions for their frontline workers, especially women, and how simple some of those steps could be,” says Sattari.
The report identifies four steps companies can immediately take to support women in such roles and offers examples for each item:
1. Investing in physical well-being, such as including women in conversations about workplace design and providing adequate training on workplace harassment.
2. Adopting employee-centered scheduling practices, such as providing fixed shifts or guaranteed weekly hours that are flexible to caregiving needs.
3. Creating and clarifying growth and advancement opportunities and outlining career paths and skills expansion.
4. Training managers on how to lead empathetically.
Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion
Reporter's Notebook
The most compelling data, quotes, and insights from the field.
The 118-day Hollywood actors' strike ended just after midnight on Thursday. Hollywood studios and SAG-AFTRA, which represents over 160,000 actors, announced a tentative agreement for a new contract on Wednesday, though its details won't be publicly shared until the union's national board reviews the terms on Friday.
Around the Table
A round-up of the most important HR headlines.
- The percentage of full-time U.S. workers who say they worked part-time for at least one week because of childcare issues doubled from September to October after federal funding for childcare providers ran out. Barrons
- Junior and mid-level workers at 84 U.S.-based PE firms received higher raise increases than their counterparts this year as firms fight to retain talent. Other benefits offered to younger staff included travel insurance and more PTO. Bloomberg
- Government incentives, industry demand, and renewed union power have made blue-collar jobs more attractive to Americans. Business Insider
- Flexible working spaces are still popular despite WeWork’s bankruptcy filing. Similar companies are hoping employers will turn to them as cheaper alternatives to the massive highrise offices that many already plan to ditch. Financial Times
Watercooler
Everything you need to know from Fortune.
Does not compute. Women in computer science jobs made about 86.6 cents to every dollar that their male counterparts made from 2009 to 2019, according to Cornell University researchers. Why? Men are more likely than women to see their compensation increase after divorce, having children, or undergoing other life stages. —Jane Thier
DEI dominoes. Microsoft asked employees to set diversity goals in annual performance reviews five years ago. That effort has led to a 270% increase in workers who take optional DEI learning courses. —Ruth Umoh
Hitting where it hurts. Closing the gender pay gap and representation in STEM requires treating women as though they're high-performing men, new research finds. —Jane Thier
This is the web version of CHRO Daily, a newsletter focusing on helping HR executives navigate the needs of the workplace. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.