Technology has long been helping peopleparticularly womenin their quest to balance work and family responsibilities. The ability to work from home, tele- and video-conference into work meetings, has created new work paradigms; the internet has created new ways for part-time workers and entrepreneurs to make money from their homes.

Heres another way that technology can help improve work life for women: By giving women access to information about how companies treat their female employees. USA Today explains how one online service is doing just that:

Even with the rise of sites like Glassdoor and Monster, many women are still left wondering exactly how prospective employers handle gender-specific issues in the workplace likefamily leave and pay equity.

To find out, female job seekers are turning to Fairygodboss, a job review site exclusivelyfor women. The site provides crowdsourced intel on how female-friendly company policy is at thousands of businesses.

The 2-year-old start-up just released their2017 rankings of the best companies where women are happiest.

The rankings were based on the responses from almost 15,000 women about overall job satisfaction, gender equityand likelihood of recommendingtheir company to another woman.

The data is pulled from the anonymous job reviews that Fairygodboss usesto create company profiles.

This is great information for employees to have: women who want a company that is dedicated to supporting their advancement, and that will offer flexibility if and when they have children, have a new tool for identifying what companies might be the right fit for them. And its also important for employers to learn directly from employees and prospects what workers want most from their employers. Sites like this will give employers an incentive to try to do right by their workers so that they can earn a reputation as a place where quality employees want to work.

Unsurprisingly, most of the companies that top the list as the best places to work are large and primarily employ higher-skilled workers. But this kind of information could help women and workers at all income scales. Employers that rely more or hourly or lower-skilled workers also have an incentive to attract and retain the best, most reliable workforce possible. They will have to compete against other employers for such workers and will benefit from having a reputation of treating employees well.

Finding solutions to help people balance work and family responsibilities isnt easy, especially because not all workersnot even all womenwant the same type of support from their employers. But more information, and true flexibility, is a key to helping people find employment situations that suit them and to encourage businesses to meet the needs of workers.

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How Technology Can Solve Workplace Challenges - National Review