Women at Work

By Harvard Business Review

Business Careers

What's Women at Work about?

Women face gender discrimination throughout our careers. It doesn't have to derail our ambitions — but how do we prepare to deal with it? There's no workplace orientation session about narrowing the wage gap, standing up to interrupting male colleagues, or taking on many other issues we encounter at work. So HBR editors Amy Bernstein, Sarah Green Carmichael, and Nicole Torres are untangling some of the knottiest problems. They interview experts on gender, tell stories about their own experiences, and give lots of practical advice to help you succeed in spite of the obstacles.

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How We Take Care of Ourselves

11.11.2019

At work, self-care might mean asking for a deadline extension, going to the gym in the middle of the day, or blocking off a few hours to prioritize tasks for the week. But that’s all easier said than done. We ...

Women at Work episodes:

11.11.2019 How We Take Care of Ourselves At work, self-care might mean asking for a deadline extension, going to the gym in the middle of the day, or blocking off a few hours to prioritize tasks for the week. But that’s all easier said than done. We ...
11.07.2019 May We Recommend…The Anxious Achiever Anxiety comes up in our conversations on the show from time to time, and we think it’s important to think about and talk about mental health. That’s why we’re recommending you listen to The Anxious Achiever, a new podcast by ...
11.04.2019 Work Friendships Are Mostly Amazing and Sometimes Messy Having a close friend at work feels great. You have someone to laugh with, confide in, and exchange glances with during a meeting. But we often fail to anticipate how the conflicting demands of work can occasionally strain that relationship. ...
10.29.2019 Sponsorship: Defining the Relationship Sponsorship is when someone influential in your organization advocates on your behalf to get you where you want to go. But the sponsor-protege relationship isn’t always clear-cut. We talk about what sponsors really do and what the protege’s role is. ...
10.21.2019 Networking Doesn’t Have to Be a Drag Building relationships that benefit our careers isn’t about exchanging business cards at work events; it’s about getting to know people we can learn from. We discuss how to develop a strong network and what the very best women networkers do. ...
10.14.2019 Let’s Talk About Money Talking with colleagues about how much we earn can help us figure out if we’re being paid fairly, but sharing those numbers is stressful. With the help of experts, we discuss the tricky practicalities of salary disclosure and what to ...
10.07.2019 Introducing Season Four Women at Work is back Oct. 14 with stories, conversations, and practical advice about being a woman in the workplace. Expect to hear from us every Monday for the next couple of months. Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City ...
06.17.2019 Sisterhood Is Trust High-quality relationships with other women at work, and the productivity and creativity those connections bring, are built on trusting one another with our emotions. Two researchers share findings from their recent survey about emotional vulnerability in the workplace. Guests: Beth ...
06.10.2019 Why Things Aren’t Better, Yet Many companies are still sorting out the right policies to put in place around sexual harassment. But even where good policies exist, we all need the skills and confidence to respond to and prevent inappropriate behavior at work. Guests: Marianne ...
06.03.2019 When You’re Responsible for Eldercare Women are responsible for most eldercare, and it’s often an exhausting, isolating job that has to be done on top of your paid work. We talk with a researcher who’s gone through it herself; she shares coping strategies and advice ...
05.27.2019 There’s More to Gender Than “Man” and “Woman” Thinking of gender as man/woman and masculine/feminine leaves out a lot of people. We talk about the problems the gender binary causes at work and get advice on how to support transgender and nonbinary colleagues. Guest: Lily Zheng. Our theme ...
05.20.2019 When Women Compete We discuss how women think about and approach competition at work and get advice on how to keep our disagreements — and people’s perceptions of them — from turning negative. Guest: Leah Sheppard. Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City ...
05.13.2019 Sorry Not Sorry Do women really apologize more than men at work? We speak with a psychology professor and a leadership consultant about the impact that saying “sorry” and using other minimizing language has on job success, and what words and phrases to ...
05.06.2019 No Partner, No Kids, No Problem Just because some of us are single and childless doesn’t mean we don’t have problems at the office or responsibilities outside of it. We talk with a woman who’s been writing a series of essays about her singlehood, as well ...
04.29.2019 The Upside of Working Motherhood There are a lot of reasons women should feel optimistic about having both a career and children. Two professors tell us about the takeaways from their research on working motherhood and from their experience raising three kids each. They give ...
04.22.2019 Step into the Spotlight Visibility at work is important for our professional advancement — and tricky, especially for women. In this live episode, we talk about navigating the risks and rewards of being in the spotlight, as well as the best ways to increase ...
04.15.2019 Managing Burnout Stress can enhance our performance at work, but not if it leads to burnout. We talk with an expert on workplace well-being about how women experience burnout and how to manage its causes, symptoms, and repercussions. Guest: Mandy O’Neill.
04.01.2019 Introducing Season Three Women at Work is back April 15 with stories, conversations, and practical advice about being a woman in the workplace. Expect to hear from us every Monday for the next couple of months.
03.06.2019 Meet Our New Co-Host! Amy Gallo is a contributing editor for HBR, an expert on conflict and difficult conversations, a prolific giver of advice — and now she takes up the baton of co-hosting the show from Sarah Green Carmichael. Our theme music is ...
11.26.2018 Self-Disclosure at Work (and Behind the Mic) In this special live episode, we share stories, research, and practical advice for strategic self-disclosure, and then take questions from the audience. Guest: Katherine Phillips. Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by Audio Network.
11.19.2018 Sisterhood Is Power Women will be a stronger force against sexism and racism at work if we know and trust each other. We talk through best practices for listening to, learning about, and advocating for women who are different from us. Guests: Tina ...
11.12.2018 Your Parental Leave Stories We bring you three stories about parental leave, from listeners whose experiences with it changed them, for better or for worse. They talk about having to fight for more time off, go back to work before they were ready, care ...
11.05.2018 Sisterhood Is Scarce We hold ourselves back when we let differences like race or class divide us from other women. We talk about the very different experiences and professional relationships black and white female managers had in 1970s and 1980s corporate America, and ...
10.29.2018 When We Make All (or Most of) the Money If you’re your family’s chief breadwinner, research suggests that the pressure you’re feeling is different from what men have been dealing with for eons. We talk about the highs and lows of being in this role and examples of support ...
10.22.2018 The Art of Claiming Credit Women have to work harder to be recognized for our ideas. And that recognition is essential for getting the assignments and the promotions we deserve — for moving our careers forward. We talk about how to present an idea in ...
10.15.2018 Perfect Is the Enemy Perfectionist tendencies are a trap that can be difficult to avoid, but we’ll be more productive and advance faster if we don’t worry so much about making the occasional mistake. We talk about how perfectionists can get out of their ...
10.09.2018 We Deserve Better Than “Attagirl” Both male and female managers tend to give women low-quality feedback. And when we don’t hear how we’re really doing at work and what we can do to improve — and men do — we’re put at a disadvantage. We ...
10.01.2018 Making Great Decisions Being a great decision maker is uniquely challenging for women. It’s not us; it’s sexism. Stereotypes about the way we make calls can be insulting and distracting. Knowing that we’ll be judged more harshly than men when we make mistakes ...
09.24.2018 Managing Parental Leave (Yours or Someone Else’s) Women around the world have access to vastly different amounts of paid parental leave. In some countries, they can take a year or more. In the U.S., they’re not guaranteed any paid leave at all. We talk about how to ...
09.17.2018 Let’s Do Less Dead-End Work Women are expected and asked to do thankless tasks — order lunch, handle less-valued clients — more than men, and research shows that doing those tasks slows down our career advancement and makes us unhappy at work. We talk about ...
08.27.2018 Introducing Season Two Women at Work is back Sept. 17 with stories, conversations, and practical advice about women and work. Expect to hear from us every Monday for the next couple of months. Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided ...
06.19.2018 Back in September with Season Two! We’re delighted to be making more episodes for you. And we’re asking you to help shape this next season to fit what you’re dealing with and needing guidance on. Our theme music is Matt Hill’s “City In Motion,” provided by ...
03.08.2018 The Advice We Get and Give Professional women get all kinds of advice — some of it helpful, some of it really unhelpful, and some of it nice-sounding but pretty impossible to use. We question some of the classic advice women get (and give) on asking ...
03.01.2018 Work After #MeToo While once accusations of sexual harassment would be met with — at most — a monetary settlement and a non-disclosure agreement, today they are more likely to be publicized and investigated. Now, the challenge is, how do we harness this ...
02.21.2018 Mind the (Wage) Gap The gender wage gap is the lifetime financial curse that punishes so many of us. What’s going on in women’s careers that causes us to earn so much less? Guests: Claudia Goldin and Margaret Gullette. Our theme music is Matt ...
02.09.2018 Lead with Authenticity As leaders, we know we’re supposed to be authentic, but for women, that can be tricky. For one thing, it can be hard to even know what our “true selves” want with all the demands competing for our attention. For ...
02.01.2018 Couples That Work Simmering resentments over whose career comes first. Bickering over household tasks. Arguments over who should pick up the kids this time. This is the portrait of two-career coupledom in much of the popular media. But for a lot of couples, ...
01.24.2018 Make Yourself Heard Have you ever been in a meeting and shared an idea, only to have it ignored? Then, 10 minutes later, a guy shares the same idea, and your boss says “Great idea!” (Grrr.) Or maybe you’ve been told you apologize ...
01.16.2018 Introducing Women at Work Conversations about the workplace, and women's place in it.

Women at Work

What's Women at Work about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Women at Work episodes:

How We Take Care of Ourselves

May We Recommend…The Anxious Achiever

Work Friendships Are Mostly Amazing and Sometimes Messy

Sponsorship: Defining the Relationship

Networking Doesn’t Have to Be a Drag

Let’s Talk About Money

Introducing Season Four

Sisterhood Is Trust

Why Things Aren’t Better, Yet

When You’re Responsible for Eldercare

There’s More to Gender Than “Man” and “Woman”

When Women Compete

Sorry Not Sorry

No Partner, No Kids, No Problem

The Upside of Working Motherhood

Step into the Spotlight

Managing Burnout

Introducing Season Three

Meet Our New Co-Host!

Self-Disclosure at Work (and Behind the Mic)

Sisterhood Is Power

Your Parental Leave Stories

Sisterhood Is Scarce

When We Make All (or Most of) the Money

The Art of Claiming Credit

Perfect Is the Enemy

We Deserve Better Than “Attagirl”

Making Great Decisions

Managing Parental Leave (Yours or Someone Else’s)

Let’s Do Less Dead-End Work

Introducing Season Two

Back in September with Season Two!

The Advice We Get and Give

Work After #MeToo

Mind the (Wage) Gap

Lead with Authenticity

Couples That Work

Make Yourself Heard

Introducing Women at Work

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