Women at Work

Harvard Business Review

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 staffers Amy Bernstein, Amy Gallo, and Emily Caulfield 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. read less

Our Editor's Take

In essence, Women at Work is a podcast about women's role in the workplace. But when has anything ever been so simple? Women's issues are one of the many problems permeating modern-day workplaces. Many women often face challenges in their work life. This podcast explores some of these challenges and offers management advice. It is a helpful show for professional women and those wanting to improve workplace environments.

Harvard Business Review publishes many studies and insights about workplaces. It's no surprise that they've found plenty of results showing profound gender issues. This is the main reason for them launching the Women at Work podcast. It helps people navigate workplace issues and provides tips for more harmonious environments.

The Women at Work podcast has two hosts. Amy Bernstein is the editor of Harvard Business Review. Cohost Amy Gallo is a contributing editor at HBR. The cohosts address the issues discussed with respect and thoughtfulness.

In the beginning, Women at Work started with a mere six episodes. These detailed the most significant issues Harvard Business Review found about women. It included information on the wage gap, making oneself heard as a woman, and more. Popular demand brought the podcast back for a second season. That season examined these issues even further, speaking to women and experts on work. The podcast addressed parental leave, being the "breadwinner," and more. The show continued, with each season bringing more listeners and more relevancy. Some notable topics include working at home, Black women and work, and career change.

Regardless of workplace or gender, Women at Work is relevant for many audiences. It contains stories, conversations, and practical tips on making workplaces fairer. This podcast can help provide valuable tools to make a difference in the workplace. Everyone deserves to feel appreciated at work.

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Season 10 of Women at Work Starts October 21
14-10-2024
Season 10 of Women at Work Starts October 21
How are women using GenAI to transform their work? What can we learn from the listeners who identify as “AI power users” about how to boost our productivity, creativity, and confidence? Why is working while parenting a teenager so much harder than Amy Gallo expected, and how can she and other moms navigate this emotionally demanding phase of motherhood? If you’re mid-career and thinking about switching industries, what should you know before making the leap? These questions are at the heart of some of the conversations the Amys are having this season. As always, they’ll bring you expertise, stories, and advice.

Episodes

Working While Parenting a Teen: Not What I Expected
3d ago
Working While Parenting a Teen: Not What I Expected
Do you expect to have more time for yourself and for your career as your kids become teens and young adults? Amy G did. If you too are getting “urgent” texts from your teenager at all hours, feeling judged by other parents about your level of involvement, and trying to figure out how to set the right amount of boundaries, she and Danna Greenberg hear you and have advice.
Chats, Bots, and Prompts: Make GenAI Work for You
11-11-2024
Chats, Bots, and Prompts: Make GenAI Work for You
There’s something about hearing how other women are making the most of LLMs that can turn even the most GenAI-avoidant among us GenAI-curious. At least that’s what happened to the Amys when they heard from several power users who’ve broadened their thinking, deepened their agency at work, and saved themselves time and stress. Maybe in listening to them you’ll be inspired too.
When Anxiety Interferes with Work
04-11-2024
When Anxiety Interferes with Work
Worrying is a fact of life; it comes and goes, usually. A clinical psychologist explains how to better manage anxiety at work, whether you have an anxiety disorder, suspect you might, or want to support a colleague who does.
To Get What You Want, Be Both Assertive and Warm
28-10-2024
To Get What You Want, Be Both Assertive and Warm
When you’re interacting with people at work, how often do you find yourself deflecting praise, downplaying your accomplishments, or responding “busy!” when someone asks how you’re doing? Why are those such common habits, especially if they so often leave us feeling fake? Alison Fragale, a professor of organizational behavior, offers an alternative: bring genuine strength and friendliness to everyday interactions because that combination gets women the success we deserve.
What a Woman in the White House Could Mean for Us
21-10-2024
What a Woman in the White House Could Mean for Us
Political scientist Farida Jalalzai and organizational psychologist Laura Morgan Roberts unpack the symbolic and practical effects of having a woman in a top leadership position. They explore how Kamala Harris’s potential presidency could challenge and shift our notions of leadership and change the way that women understand what’s possible for themselves. They also dive into the realities Harris might face if elected—like juggling high expectations and navigating the complexities of representation.
Season 10 of Women at Work Starts October 21
14-10-2024
Season 10 of Women at Work Starts October 21
How are women using GenAI to transform their work? What can we learn from the listeners who identify as “AI power users” about how to boost our productivity, creativity, and confidence? Why is working while parenting a teenager so much harder than Amy Gallo expected, and how can she and other moms navigate this emotionally demanding phase of motherhood? If you’re mid-career and thinking about switching industries, what should you know before making the leap? These questions are at the heart of some of the conversations the Amys are having this season. As always, they’ll bring you expertise, stories, and advice.
Ground Your DEI Efforts in Data
12-08-2024
Ground Your DEI Efforts in Data
How do you know how diverse your company’s workforce is, how equitable its processes are, and how included people feel if nobody is using any metrics? DEI strategist Lily Zheng explains the power of data to track a company’s progress, fix unfairness, and hold people to their promises. They have advice for measuring and improving diversity, equity, and inclusion even when you don’t have a budget or you’re starting from scratch.
How to Manage: Rising from Middle to Senior Management
24-06-2024
How to Manage: Rising from Middle to Senior Management
Is mid-level management a stone you’re ready to step off of? Making that move is difficult but doable, and Amy B and her three guests will direct, inspire, and reassure you. An executive coach validates the challenges of scoring a position that’s scarce. Then, two COOs whose careers stagnated in mid-level management before accelerating again, recount the conversations, decisions, and networking that jump-started them.
How to Manage: Selling Your Ideas to Leadership
17-06-2024
How to Manage: Selling Your Ideas to Leadership
As a mid-level manager, when you spot an opportunity for the business to adopt a new technology, enter a different market, or improve a process, how should you approach the people above you so that they listen to your idea and act on it? Executives have a reputation for dismissing suggestions that aren’t theirs. Amy B and her two guests, Sue Ashford and Ellen Bailey, suggest ways to frame the issue, involve others, and manage emotions so that your idea comes to fruition.
How to Manage: Executing Strategy
10-06-2024
How to Manage: Executing Strategy
Strategist Andrea Belk Olson spells out how to make the most of the latest corporate master plan that’s now your job to put into action. She suggests important questions to ask yourself before hitting the ground running, ways to handle resistance from team members, what to do when the plan isn’t working well, and points to include in progress updates.
How to Manage: Getting Out of the Weeds
03-06-2024
How to Manage: Getting Out of the Weeds
What’s the happy middle between micromanaging and being too hands off? Amy B and three other experienced mid-level managers describe how they think about when to intervene and when not to so that they are empowering their teams and freeing up their own minds to do more of their most strategic work.
Attend Women at Work Live May 16
16-04-2024
Attend Women at Work Live May 16
Register for a lively four hours with the Amys, their guest experts, and fellow fans of the show. Dorie Clark will talk about working with the ambition you’ve got right now; Ruchi Sinha building teams’ trust in you as a leader and in one another; and Lily Zheng, on where we are now with DEI and where they’d like to see organizations go from here. We’ll end with an advice hour, where Amy B and Amy G answer audience questions about leading a team, dealing with conflict, negotiating, or whatever else comes through the chat.
The Essentials: Handling Fierce Criticism
25-03-2024
The Essentials: Handling Fierce Criticism
If you’re in a leadership role, or any role where you are outspoken and visible, chances are that at some point people are going to criticize you, sometimes fiercely, sometimes publicly. Are you ready for that? Two women who’ve felt the heat because of decisions they’ve made or arguments they’ve put forward—or simply because of who they are—reflect on the ways they’ve steeled themselves and dealt with the fallout. Listening to them recount how they responded to fierce criticism will hopefully help you think about how you might respond, both when you see it coming and when you don’t.
The Essentials: Setting and Maintaining Boundaries
18-03-2024
The Essentials: Setting and Maintaining Boundaries
We all need to set boundaries, even in the most structured jobs, because work has its way of encroaching on the rest of our life. Ashley, a senior analyst for the federal government, recently shifted to a schedule that helps her do her most important work and have some alone time before her family gets home. Now she’s trying to figure out how to further minimize interruptions, deal with slow and busy stretches, and get out of unproductive meetings. Amy G and executive coach Melody Wilding talk through adjustments Ashley can make and things she can say to achieve those goals. They also offer strategies for how to communicate your new limits with colleagues and how to hold the line when your boundaries inevitably get tested.
The Essentials: Building and Repairing Trust
11-03-2024
The Essentials: Building and Repairing Trust
Trust smooths the way for collaboration, conflict resolution, and influencing. But how do you build this asset? And how do you repair it when you’ve missed a series of important deadlines or otherwise messed up? Organizational psychologist Ruchi Sinha talks with a listener who’s struggling to restore skeptics’ confidence in her and her team. Ruchi shares the three elements of trust and how to convey each one. She also offers advice on what to do if you’ve failed to acknowledge a broken promise and how to communicate practically when confidentiality prevents you from being totally transparent.
The Essentials: Executive Presence
04-03-2024
The Essentials: Executive Presence
Executive presence is a mix of gravitas, communication skills, and appearance. But what does that look and sound like in practice? To help a fully remote insurance underwriter think through ways she can act like a leader, we bring in a role model of hers and an expert in strategic communication.
Sexism Is Everywhere
04-12-2023
Sexism Is Everywhere
Is there any way to know for sure whether something that someone did—or neglected to do—is rooted in sexism? When is confronting that person worth it? And if you’ll never know what drove their actions, how do you make peace with the uncertainty? Amy G talks through these questions with two professors who study perceptions and gender stereotypes.
Is Entrepreneurship Right for Me? (from New Here)
30-11-2023
Is Entrepreneurship Right for Me? (from New Here)
It’s a question that so many of us are grappling with. Should I quit corporate life and pursue my passion project? Today in this episode from our colleagues at New Here—HBR's podcast for young professionals—we’ll help you think through the possibilities and trade-offs, as we learn from one woman’s experiences leaving corporate life to build her own business. You’ll learn which of her fears were warranted, how she battled loneliness, managed her money, and whether or not she is actually happier working for herself.
Ever Consider Joining a Board?
27-11-2023
Ever Consider Joining a Board?
Eight women who’ve been on boards share how they landed a seat, gained confidence in the role, and found unexpected personal and professional benefits in the work. We hope their perspectives and advice will encourage you to consider trying it yourself some day. Ellen Zane, who runs a Harvard workshop for women interested in board work, gives further insight based on her deep experience as a director for nonprofits and private and public companies.
Ask the Amys
20-11-2023
Ask the Amys
What if one of your first assignments at a new job was to fire people? What should you do if the person leading a project you’re on isn’t giving clear direction, demands that you work nights and weekends, bristles at your feedback—and leadership tells you to fall in line? These are two of the five situations that Amy B and Amy G talk through in this episode. They offer advice to the women who wrote in with their questions, with the hope that it will help them and anyone who’s been in a similar situation, or might be one unfortunate day.