Laura Althoff is a long-time subject matter expert for Skye Learning, appearing primarily in project management courses such as Principles of Scrum and Project Management Team Leadership. Skye is also excited share Althoff’s experiences as a woman leader in the workplace through its forthcoming Certificate in Leadership for Women in Business.

Althoff is a change management and agile coaching consultant with over 20 years of experience leveraging capacity, supporting transformation, and enhancing organizational performance. She is the founder of Althoff Consulting and a Project Management Council Member for MindEdge Learning. She was formerly the Executive Director for Scrum, Inc., and the Director of Account Services at the Wellness Corporation. Throughout her career, Althoff has used creativity, technology, and problem-solving to build and strengthen relationships with various business partners in diverse settings.

Achieving a satisfying work-life balance is a common struggle for professionals across all industries.At the core of work-life balance is the attempt to reconcile the tension between one's professional obligations and the activities that provide personal fulfillment outside of work. Experts agree that the lack of building personal fulfillment activities into one's daily schedule reduces feelings of overall happiness and can negatively impact one's health.

Most of us have heard this statistic: women earn about 80 cents for every dollar earned by men, known as the raw gender wage gap. When the wage gap is adjusted to account for occupation, hours worked, experience, and more, we still see an adjusted wage gap of about 93 to 95 cents per dollar. So why does the wage gap persist, even when all factors are equal?

Negotiation is a frequent suspect, since most studies suggest that women negotiate less often than men. Even more concerning, women who do negotiate are usually less successful than men. So are men simply better negotiators than women? This doesn’t appear to be the case.

Working women are often confronted with double binds caused by gender stereotypes and norms about gender roles, which can hinder women in business from successfully occupying positions of authority. A double bind is a situation in which a person making a decision receives conflicting messages, and no matter what the person does, they'll be doing something that will be thought of as wrong.

At the core of strong leadership is the ability to communicate effectively. And while much focus is placed on verbal communication skills, it is often the nonverbal messages - sent through facial expressions, body movements, and gestures - that have a greater impact.

Understanding how to read and use body language to communicate can help women business leaders, in particular, establish their positions of authority and prevent feeling constrained by gender stereotypes. Certain nonverbal cues can come more naturally than others, but like verbal communication, nonverbal messages can be controlled by the individual.

It has been more than 100 years since women started entering the workforce, and they are still fighting for equality. Research highlights a lack of women in higher positions, pay gaps between women and their male coworkers, and discrimination against women who are married, women who have children, and women in general. Take a look at our latest infographic for a brief history of women in the workplace.

Women are an invaluable part of the workforce, making up nearly 47 percent of all working adults. Women are athletes, academics, actors, and accountants; politicians, pilots, plumbers, and police officers; scientists, school teachers, sanitation workers, and security guards. Few jobs have never been held by a woman.  

In many ways, we are far from the days in American history in which women were told their place was either in the home or in particular roles doing "woman's work."

Active listening is a way of listening and responding to another person that improves mutual understanding. Active listening can be employed in varied organizational settings, in discussions between managers and employees, in interviews of all types, and in mediation and conflict resolution. Check out these ten tips on how you can improve your active listening skills.