One in four American women plans to abandon their career due to the effects of the covid

The percentage of female managers in the United States is 21% .JUSTIN LANE /

The Latest

de Mckinsey affirms that the covid-19 “has turned the workplace upside down”, many employees feel permanently active, as the line between work and home has blurred [93% of companies perform more tasks remotely] , and are concerned about health and finances.

"Burnout is a real problem," he says.

Especially in the case of women, who are more likely to be fired, stall their careers and jeopardize their economic security.

Their dual role in the office and at home, especially for those who are mothers, without the support of schools and caregivers due to the pandemic, has intensified the problem.

And the result is that "one in four women is contemplating what many would have considered unthinkable just six months ago: withdrawing from their careers or leaving the workforce altogether."

Up to two million women consider quitting work.

This occurs in the United States, where Mckinsey and Leanin.Org have conducted 40,000 surveys in 317 companies, in which they detect what they consider an emergency: “Companies run the risk of losing women in leadership positions, future women leaders, and undo years of painstaking progress toward gender diversity.

[…] All the progress we have seen in the last six years could be erased ”.

And not only that, "the possibility of losing so many women of high level of responsibility is alarming", the financial consequences can be high, since research shows that the profits of companies and the performance of their actions can be almost a 50% higher when women are represented at the top, explains the consultant.

An alarming situation that could well be transferred to Spain, where the coronavirus crisis has also been primed with them.

Female unemployment continues to increase [there are 2.2 million unemployed, compared to 1.6 million men, despite the fact that they are the majority among the active population], they are more affected by the high tension of work and care, which The health of 41% of them is worsening and 64% are at risk of poor mental health, the Confederal Secretary for Women and Equality of CC OO, Elena Blasco, recently alerted.

For this reason, the experts consulted are not surprised by the data provided by Mckinsey.

“They are tremendous, although they do not surprise me.

The covid has once again put the unequal distribution of household chores raw, ”says Krista Walochik, a partner at Talengo.

“The Spanish situation is not very different from that of the United States.

In Spain there are not many studies, but women have already been suffering the burdens of family obligations and the covid complicates it even more.

Even now with the sprouts, they lack help to cope with the confinement of their children.

The underlying thing is that the lack of co-responsibility has not been resolved ”, appreciates María José López, director of the Comillas Icade Conciliation and Co-responsibility Observatory, who is convinced that the pandemic will mean a setback in female labor progress.

This is what Laura Baena, founder of the Malasmadres Club, also believes, “since March 23 we have been warning that the pandemic is going to mean steps backwards for women because co-responsibility is far from being a reality and conciliation has flown through the air after the confinement, which has returned the men to the offices while the women are still at home looking after the children, ”he says.

Baena points out that many are already quitting their jobs because they have no other way out, especially the most disadvantaged.

Until this year, Mckinsey had found that the churn rates of male and female US companies were comparable.

However, the pandemic has put pressure, especially in the case of mothers, who are three times more likely than men to take responsibility for domestic work: one in three is thinking about changing careers or leaving because of the coronavirus.

The main reason they expose is the care of their children.

Reason that in the case of directives is exhaustion.

Because a minority of companies have adjusted the objectives they demand from their workforce to the times of the covid and the pressure of impossible results is burning them, "they are not addressing the possible causes of the underlying stress."

Less than a third of US companies have updated their employee performance review criteria and half have revised their productivity expectations.

Which means that employees face the trade-off of either failing to meet pre-pandemic outcomes or struggling to maintain an unsustainable pace.

Mothers and directives are exhausted, the report describes.

Added to this is financial anxiety, to which many organizations have responded with stress relief programs, more than half have increased paid leave and a third have offset remote work expenses, but many employees are no longer aware of the Most of them are most concerned about the possibility of being fired.

“American companies are at a crossroads.

The decisions you make today will have consequences for gender equality for decades to come, ”warns Mckinsey.

In her opinion, corporations have two paths: to recognize the magnitude of the problem and to tackle it by helping their employees and even by reinventing the work model to make it more flexible or face consequences that could seriously harm women, companies and the economy as a whole.

In order to retain female talent, she advises organizations to reduce the pressures to which they are subjecting them, reviewing their productivity and performance objectives to make them more realistic or lengthen their achievement deadlines;

give them days off to rest from the double role they play and set the limits of professional and personal life, which may require new ways of working, new hours, in short, greater flexibility.

In addition, they must readjust their policies to help employees and strengthen communication.

Some measures of labor flexibility that would be directly transferable to Spain, to which should be added, in the opinion of Laura Baena, incorporating the gender perspective in all socio-labor policies, so that six out of ten women stop giving up being mothers for lack of aid to conciliation.

“There has to be more flexibility and co-responsibility.

We need a national plan to support conciliation ”, ditch.