Study finds women value friendships and recognition, men want money and power
Women are interested in developing relationships at work and recognition while men are more focused on how much money they make and how much power they have, according to a new survey out of the United States.
The study of 1,100 workers conducted for LLuminari, a health education company, indicated that gender-based differences in workplace values can create a company culture of underlying stress and conflict that affects the physical and emotional health of both men and women.
Marianne Legato, founder and director of the Partnership for Gender-Based Medicine at Columbia University and one of the study’s lead authors, said men and women emphasized “entirely different values” as important in the workplace.
What men want
Legato said the study reveals the three values in the workplace most important to men are:
•pay and benefits;
•achievement and success; and
•status and authority.
What women want
While these values also are important to women, ranking higher in importance were:
•friends at work and relationships;
•recognition and respect; and
•communication and collaboration.
“Women emphasized the congeniality of coworkers and the friendliness and relationships that surround them,” said Legato. “Men emphasized how much they were making and how much control or power they had over what they were doing.”
The study, “Creating Healthy Corporate Cultures for Both Genders,” was conducted for LLuminari by Michael Peterson, a profession of health promotion at the University of Delaware. More than 1,100 men and women from companies with more than 1,000 employees took part in the online survey.
“It’s important that managers understand what men value as opposed to what women value in a healthy workplace environment,” said Peterson. “Knowing and managing the differences helps to not only effectively motivate employees and generate consistent, quality results, but also to foster loyalty and overall physical and emotional health.”
Gender and stress
The study found that one in three Americans may be making themselves sick just by going to work each day. That’s because differences in the way men and women are managed — fueled by the differences in what they value most at work — puts both men and women at risk for cardiovascular problems, depression and a higher susceptibility to infectious diseases.
Alice Domar, director of the Mind/Body Center for Women’s Health at Boston IVF and assistant profession of OB/GYN and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School, said it is the disconnection between gender-based values that creates on-the-job stress which can lead to subsequent health issues for employees.
“Women and men respond differently to stress. Women also report having more to worry about each day,” said Domar. “Men on average worried about three things on a daily basis (immediate family, job and money.) Women worried about up to 12 things, including their immediate family, job and money but also their extended family, the home, the social and academic lives of the children, social connections with neighbours and friends and more.”
Results from the study show that corporate culture — the values, beliefs and attitudes that drive the behaviours, systems and structures of the organization — have a major impact on organizational health and the quality of work life for employees. Workers feel stressed when their values are not addressed by the culture of the organization.
“The study reveals that 62 per cent of respondents don’t think employers try to minimize stress and half felt their employer didn’t care about their well being,” said Peterson. “In addition, the study indicated that women reported nearly 40 per cent more health problems than their male counterparts and noticeably higher stress.”
The top five work-related causes of stress
Peterson said the top five work-related causes of stress and ill health identified by respondents in the study were:
•mentally tiring work;
•time pressure;
•too many changes within the job;
•not getting enough feedback; and
•not having enough influence on their job and how it is done.
“We were trying to determine how employees define a healthy workplace and discovered that the way a job is designed and how much control or influence an employee has over their job is a critical component of a perceived healthy corporate culture,” said Peterson.
Other conclusions from the survey
•Men and women value similar things at work but in a very different order of priority.
•Women understand what men value much better than men understand what women value.
•Workplaces may not be equally healthy for men and women.
•Employees do not believe that corporate leaders understand the relationship between their own health and an organization’s health.
•Corporations can better assess the impact of work and work culture on employee health outcomes or a culture’s influence on health-care costs by examining gender differences.
For a PDF presentation of the study, visit www.lluminari.com.
The study of 1,100 workers conducted for LLuminari, a health education company, indicated that gender-based differences in workplace values can create a company culture of underlying stress and conflict that affects the physical and emotional health of both men and women.
Marianne Legato, founder and director of the Partnership for Gender-Based Medicine at Columbia University and one of the study’s lead authors, said men and women emphasized “entirely different values” as important in the workplace.
What men want
Legato said the study reveals the three values in the workplace most important to men are:
•pay and benefits;
•achievement and success; and
•status and authority.
What women want
While these values also are important to women, ranking higher in importance were:
•friends at work and relationships;
•recognition and respect; and
•communication and collaboration.
“Women emphasized the congeniality of coworkers and the friendliness and relationships that surround them,” said Legato. “Men emphasized how much they were making and how much control or power they had over what they were doing.”
The study, “Creating Healthy Corporate Cultures for Both Genders,” was conducted for LLuminari by Michael Peterson, a profession of health promotion at the University of Delaware. More than 1,100 men and women from companies with more than 1,000 employees took part in the online survey.
“It’s important that managers understand what men value as opposed to what women value in a healthy workplace environment,” said Peterson. “Knowing and managing the differences helps to not only effectively motivate employees and generate consistent, quality results, but also to foster loyalty and overall physical and emotional health.”
Gender and stress
The study found that one in three Americans may be making themselves sick just by going to work each day. That’s because differences in the way men and women are managed — fueled by the differences in what they value most at work — puts both men and women at risk for cardiovascular problems, depression and a higher susceptibility to infectious diseases.
Alice Domar, director of the Mind/Body Center for Women’s Health at Boston IVF and assistant profession of OB/GYN and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School, said it is the disconnection between gender-based values that creates on-the-job stress which can lead to subsequent health issues for employees.
“Women and men respond differently to stress. Women also report having more to worry about each day,” said Domar. “Men on average worried about three things on a daily basis (immediate family, job and money.) Women worried about up to 12 things, including their immediate family, job and money but also their extended family, the home, the social and academic lives of the children, social connections with neighbours and friends and more.”
Results from the study show that corporate culture — the values, beliefs and attitudes that drive the behaviours, systems and structures of the organization — have a major impact on organizational health and the quality of work life for employees. Workers feel stressed when their values are not addressed by the culture of the organization.
“The study reveals that 62 per cent of respondents don’t think employers try to minimize stress and half felt their employer didn’t care about their well being,” said Peterson. “In addition, the study indicated that women reported nearly 40 per cent more health problems than their male counterparts and noticeably higher stress.”
The top five work-related causes of stress
Peterson said the top five work-related causes of stress and ill health identified by respondents in the study were:
•mentally tiring work;
•time pressure;
•too many changes within the job;
•not getting enough feedback; and
•not having enough influence on their job and how it is done.
“We were trying to determine how employees define a healthy workplace and discovered that the way a job is designed and how much control or influence an employee has over their job is a critical component of a perceived healthy corporate culture,” said Peterson.
Other conclusions from the survey
•Men and women value similar things at work but in a very different order of priority.
•Women understand what men value much better than men understand what women value.
•Workplaces may not be equally healthy for men and women.
•Employees do not believe that corporate leaders understand the relationship between their own health and an organization’s health.
•Corporations can better assess the impact of work and work culture on employee health outcomes or a culture’s influence on health-care costs by examining gender differences.
For a PDF presentation of the study, visit www.lluminari.com.
