What would make your work experience better?
More flexibility? A bigger role? Better compensation? Professional development? More time to think? A stronger relationship with your manager? A clearer path to leadership?
For women navigating today’s workplace, knowing the answer has become an important career skill in itself.
Deloitte’s Women @ Work 2025 study, which surveyed 7,500 women across 15 countries, found that among women who expect to remain with their employer long term, career development opportunities are the top reason for staying. Work/life balance, flexibility around working hours, and good pay and benefits are also important factors.
Gallup has found something similar. Work/life balance and personal well-being are top considerations for both women and men when evaluating a new job, while flexibility can be particularly important in keeping women in the workforce.
The message for employers is clear. But there’s another message for women, too: Don’t wait for your company to figure out what you need. Figure it out for yourself, and learn how to ask for it.
First, Figure Out What You Actually Want
We can’t ask for what we want if we haven’t taken the time to figure out what that is.
“A lot of women don’t have the time to sit and think about what they want,” says Katie Louise Mullins, co-founder of It All Media. “We get stuck in this place, almost survival mode. We are burned out. It’s also a lack of knowledge about what could be better.”
That’s an important distinction. Sometimes dissatisfaction at work doesn’t mean you need a different job. You may simply need a different experience in the job you already have.
Kacie Lett Gordon, co-founder of It All Media, recommends starting with your values.
“First you have to go inward and say, what are the things I value?” she says. “Then you can act from a place of intention.”
Think about when you feel most energized at work and what consistently drains you. What do you want more of? What would make your work and life function better together? What skill or experience would help you get where you want to go next? And perhaps most importantly, what are you tolerating that you haven’t actually tried to change?
The answer might be money. But it could also be autonomy, flexibility, visibility, mentorship, a stretch assignment, leadership training or simply uninterrupted time to do your best work.
Think Beyond Salary
Compensation matters, but it’s only one part of your overall work experience. There may be more room to shape that experience than you realize.
Maybe what you need is greater control over your schedule, flexible hours, a hybrid arrangement, additional vacation time or protected no-meeting time. Maybe it’s support for your life outside work through mental health resources, wellness benefits, caregiver leave or family-building benefits.
Or perhaps what you’re missing is an opportunity to grow. Executive coaching, leadership development, tuition or certification assistance, conferences, professional memberships, stretch assignments, mentorship, sponsorship and greater exposure to senior leadership can all have an impact on where your career goes next.
And before assuming those opportunities aren’t available, take a closer look at what your company already offers. You may have benefits, programs or resources you’re simply not using.
Don’t Underestimate Flexibility
Flexibility continues to matter enormously to working women, particularly because work isn’t the only responsibility many are carrying.
Deloitte’s 2025 research found that women living with a partner still report taking the greatest responsibility for a range of household responsibilities, including cleaning, childcare, caring for other adults, shopping and managing household finances. That’s true even among many women who are their household’s primary earner.
That makes flexibility more than a nice workplace perk. For some women, it can be an important part of making a career sustainable.
And flexibility doesn’t necessarily mean working from home. Sometimes it’s simply having greater control over when and how your work gets done.
Then, Ask
Catherine Jefferson, Chief People Officer at Jackmont Hospitality, experienced the power of asking firsthand.
When she was considering taking on the company’s top people role, she also wanted to continue executive coaching, work she was passionate about. So she asked.
The company agreed.
“We were able to have both,” she says, “and that’s exciting because sometimes women don’t ask.”
Her experience is a useful reminder: Don’t reject your own request before someone else has even had the opportunity to consider it.
Catherine recommends starting with the relationship closest to your day-to-day career.
“Make the time for one-on-ones with your manager,” she says. “Start with that relationship because they’re your advocates.”
Ideally, your manager should understand what you value, know how you perform and be able to advocate for you when you’re not in the room. But that kind of relationship usually doesn’t happen automatically. You have to invest in it.
Make the Business Case
Asking for what you need doesn’t mean walking into your manager’s office with a list of demands. The strongest requests connect what would help you with what would help the organization.
Consultant and executive coach Annette Tirabasso recommends moving beyond the ask itself and explaining the benefit behind it.
If you’re requesting professional development, explain how the new skills could help you contribute at a higher level. If you want a more flexible schedule, demonstrate how you’ll maintain accountability and results. If you’re asking for a stretch assignment, explain what you can bring to the project and what the experience could prepare you to do next.
Catherine calls it being strategic.
That mindset is particularly important as workplaces continue to evolve. If you’re going into the office, don’t simply go because it’s expected. Use that time intentionally. Strengthen relationships, meet people outside your immediate team and create opportunities for people to understand what you do and where you want to grow.
The same principle applies virtually. Your career needs relationships as much as it needs results.
Use Your Values to Find the Words
Sometimes you know something isn’t working, but putting into words what needs to change is harder.
Kacie recommends returning to your values. Maybe belonging matters to you. Maybe it’s autonomy, growth, creativity, stability, family or challenge. Identifying the value underneath your frustration can help you communicate what you actually need.
Instead of saying, “I’m unhappy,” you might say, “I do my best work when I have greater ownership of a project.”
Instead of simply asking for a promotion, you could say, “Professional growth is really important to me. I’d like to talk about what experiences I need to prepare for the next level.”
Or, if flexibility is what you need, you might explain, “Flexibility allows me to manage my responsibilities outside work while continuing to perform at a high level. I’d like to explore what might be possible.”
That changes the conversation. You’re not simply asking for something. You’re helping your manager understand what enables you to do your best work.
Own Your Work Experience
Companies have a responsibility to create workplaces where talented people can thrive. But we have a role in the equation, too.
We need to understand what success means to us now, not what it meant five years ago. We need to recognize what helps us perform at our best, what we need more of and what may need to change. And then we need to communicate those things instead of assuming someone else will notice.
The encouraging news is that employers have powerful reasons to listen. Deloitte’s latest research shows that career development, work/life balance, flexibility and compensation all influence women’s decisions about whether to remain with an organization.
So take some time and ask yourself: What would make my work experience significantly better?
Then ask the question that matters even more:
Have I actually asked for it?
“Success doesn’t come to you, you go to it.”
—Marva Collins
