If you’re running a company that involves digital marketing, you may have a hard time keeping up with the needs of your team members. Between the demands of work and life obligations, you often get left out of afternoon happy hours, weekend brunches, and other events that bring your team together. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t build relationships with people who can have a positive impact on your career. This is where a women’s support group might be worth considering.

You Can Improve Transparency

One benefit of having a women’s support group within your organization is that it will boost transparency and help build trust with your employees. By creating a space where women are free to express themselves, you encourage your team to be honest and open with one another. You can then foster a safe and reliable working environment where your employees feel comfortable expressing their concerns and offering solutions to problems that arise. The topics could range from personal issues at home to technical, work-related matters like Infrastructure as Code. By encouraging people to share their thoughts, you can boost employee engagement and increase your chances of success.

You Can Reassure Your Employees

Women tend to be less self-assured than their male counterparts, particularly in the workplace. While it may be tempting to attribute this to innate factors such as female hormones and psychology, studies have found that this difference largely boils down to societal expectations and cultural norms. Thus, if a woman works at a company with mostly male employees, she may often feel like she’s in a fishbowl. She might worry about being evaluated too critically, having her ideas misunderstood, or being disregarded in team meetings. She might also feel as though people are just waiting for her to make a mistake. This type of environment is neither encouraging nor empowering for your female team members. And while you could always push for a more substantial gender representation, hire more women, or move to a different company, forming a women’s support group could be the best way to boost confidence in your female employees.

You Can Retain Top Employees

The digital marketing industry is an ever-changing business that frequently forces companies to make difficult decisions. In times of economic uncertainty, your company might be forced to scale back or eliminate departments that are considered unessential. This can be especially harmful to women who might feel alienated by your decision to eliminate a certain department that employs a large percentage of women. By creating a women’s support group within your organization, you give female employees a space to talk about the issues that they face in the workplace and their concerns about the future of the company. You’re more likely to retain the best and brightest women in the organization when you’re willing to hear them out.

You’ll Be Making a Positive Statement

People tend to be incredibly perceptive of their surroundings, particularly when it comes to social issues such as gender. Thus, if your digital marketing company does not take active steps to be inclusive of women, it could inadvertently send the message that you as an organization don’t appreciate or value female employees. At the very least, it sends the message that your company is not equipped to nurture positive female employee relationships. On the other hand, when you form a women’s support group, you make a positive statement that your company values women.

By implementing the right strategies, you can ensure that the women at your company feel empowered and supported. Your support group doesn’t have to be a formal organization with rules and regulations. It can be as informal as a few monthly happy hours or a weekly brunch meeting. As long as the setup allows women to talk about the issues that they face, celebrate their accomplishments, and support one another, you’ll be creating an inclusive space where everyone can thrive.