CHALLENGES ON FEMALE EMPLOYEES AT PT PERTAMINA GEOTHERMAL ENERGY AREA LAHENDONG TANTANGAN PADA KARYAWAN WANITA DI PT PERTAMINA GEOTHERMAL ENERGY AREA LAHENDONG

In nowadays the presence of women is needed to bring different perspectives and solutions especially in the workplace that dominated by male workers. This research concern to challenges that female employees faced during their career in the workplaces such as glass ceiling, discrimination, sexual harassment and work-life balance also how to overcome the challenges. This research used qualitative approach. From 24 employees author took 16 informants due the sampling techniques that be used in this study is purposive sampling with the criteria of the informants those who works more than or at least 5 years. The findings of this research are age’s discrimination, sexual harassment and work-life balance as a challenges for female employees at PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong. Glass ceilings are not considered a challenge because the company only promotes employees who meet the qualifications for the position without see their gender. Those challenges influenced the employee’s performance and employees satisfactions to overcome these challenges the female employees at PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong need to develop themselves, managed time well between work and family so that it can be balanced.


Research Background
In nowadays the existence of women in the world of professional work is no longer a strange thing. It is not uncommon to see female employees in large agencies or companies. The presence of women is needed to bring different perspectives and solutions especially in the digital era where information is easily and quickly obtained and disseminated. The role of women is expected to be petrified so that the company does not only survive but continues to grow following the company's vision and mission.
Based on data on the percentage of formal workers by gender from the Central Bureau of Statistics of North Sulawesi in 2021, there are at least 35% of female workers and 65% of male workers in North Sulawesi. From this data it can be seen that women are a gender minority in the world of work in North Sulawesi. Until today, there are still many challenges to realize gender equality in the work environment. Gender inequality against women in organizations and companies remains us an issue that has never been completely resolved it because influenced by several factors including Social Cultural, Religious, and Economic. These three factors encourage the emergence of challenges for women in the workplace such as the glass ceiling, discrimination, sexual harassment and work life balance.
PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong is a company engaged in the utilization of geothermal energy which is a subsidiary of PT Pertamina (Persero). This company is based in Tomohon and has 2 work locations, namely in Lahendong Village, Tomohon City and in Tomapso District, Minahasa Regency. PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong has been operating since 2001. The company which is engaged in the utilization of geothermal energy has 297 employees consisting of 273 men and 24 women. Author chose PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong as a research object because the company based on the employee data in 2022 the percentage of female and male employees are significantly different, the world of work of this company is dominated by men and it suitable for this research. Based on the background of the problem above, the author was inspired to conduct a research entitled "Challenges on Female Employees at PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong" to find out what challenges that female employees at PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong face during their career in in male-dominated world of work. In this study, researchers hope to explore the challenges and how female employees overcome the challenges at PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy area Lahendong through research analysis.

Research Objectives
Based on the background of the problem, the objectives of this research are: 1. To examine what are the challenges that female employees faced at PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong. 2. To examine how female employees at PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong solve challenges that their faced during their career journey.

Human Resources Management
Human resources management (HRM) is about how people are employed, managed and developed in organizations (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).

Challenges
Challenge is a task or situation that tests someone's ability and skill. In this research, challenges refer to difficulties that female employees face during their career journey or advancement to higher positions.

Glass Ceiling
The glass ceiling is a metaphor that refers to the barrier that marginalized people, such as women and minorities, encounter when seeking career advancements. The term of glass ceiling coined in the 1970s in the United States to describe an invisible, artificial barrier created by attitudinal and organizational prejudice that prevents women from senior executive positions (Wirth, 2001).

Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment is a hazard encountered in workplaces across the world that reduces the quality of working life, jeopardizes the well-being of women and men, undermines gender equality and imposes costs on firms and organizations (McCann, 2005).

Work-life Balance
Work-life balance is the maintenance of a balance between responsibilities at work and at home (Balaji, 2014).

Previous Research
Kassa (2015) examine challenges and opportunities of women political participation in Ethiopia. To this end qualitative research methodology was employed. Data was collected from secondary sources mainly from published journal article, books and report of government and non-government organization. The finding of the study shows that different casual factors such as; economic, religious, social and cultural factors contributed to women's poor political participation in the country. The study further revealed that political participation allow women to address their basic problems and needs in their community and ensures the openness, real fight against rent-seeking, accountability, political commitment, political leadership, and political responsiveness of the existing national, regional, districts, and local levels. It is true that more than half percent of the world's population are women. But, they lack access to political decision making as compared to their counter parts at all levels of government. So that women's equal participation in decision-making and politics is not only a demand for simple justice or democracy, but a necessary pre-condition for women's interests to be taken into account Sundaresan (2014) investigates the factors affecting work life balance among working women and the consequences of poor-work life balance. Data were obtained through a structured questionnaire administered to 125 randomly selected working women across organizations/institutions in Bangalore City. The response rate was about 93% and the obtained data were statistically analysed. Results indicate that a significant proportion of working women are experiencing difficulty in balancing work and family due to excessive work pressure, too little time for themselves and the need to fulfill others' expectations of them. Majority of the working women experience job spill over into the home as they have to put in longer hours. Major consequences of poor worklife balance are high levels of stress and anxiety, disharmony at home, experiencing job burnout and inability to realize full potential. They feel irritable and resentful often due to their inability to balance work and family life. The findings have implications for working women and provide insights into finding solutions to maintain healthy work life balance. Two models of work life balance, viz. role-analysis model and three factor model have been developed to enable working women resolve the conflict caused due to poor work life balance. These models equip women with the mechanism to strike a fine balance and make them smarter, healthier and happier in every facet of their lives. Both the models assume greater significance for working women across the world as it helps them resolve the dilemmas of managing their multiple roles in the personal and professional lives. Pranantya (2016) examined the organization climate and job nature as the cause of sexual harassment and the effects toward job motivation, job stress, job satisfaction, and job performance. One hundred and twelve sales promotion girl who still carry status as college students are participating in this research. There are some findings in this research. The organization climate has a connection with job nature. Meanwhile, the organization climate and job nature affect toward sexual harassment. The next finding is that sexual harassment has affects toward job stress, but this research is resulting a surprising finding where sexual harassment has no effects on job motivation and job satisfaction. Next finding is that job stress affects job motivation positively. Meanwhile, job motivation does not affect job performance. The last finding is that job satisfaction does not affect job performance.

Research Approach
This research used qualitative approach. Qualitative approach focuses on the constructed reality of the research participants (Vanderstoep and Johnston, 2009).

Population, Sample Size and Sampling Technique
The population of this study was 24 female employees at PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong. The sampling technique that be used is non-probability sampling namly purposive sampling, Purposive sampling is a sampling technique with certain considerations or criteria (Sujarweni, 2004). The criteria for selecting the informants were female workers who had worked for more than 5 years. The sample of this study was 16 female employees at PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong.

Data and Sources
The data that used in this study are primary and secondary data. The primary data took from interview to 16 female employees at PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong. Secondary data collected from Gender equality CD from the Ministry of Women's Empowerment and Child Protection of the Republic of Indonesia regarding gender mainstreaming and what efforts have been made to support the program.

Data Collection Technique
Data collection techniques in this study using interviews. Interviews are used by researchers to assess a person's condition (Arikunto, 2013).

Research Instrument Testing Validity test
Validity is a measure that shows the levels of validity or validity of an instrument (Arikunto, 2013). In this study, the researcher went directly to the location of the object of research to interact with the research subject, in this case female workers at PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong.

Result Glass ceiling
Glass ceiling is not exist in this company due the company only promotes employees who meet the qualifications for the position without see their gender.

Discrimination
There is no discrimination that related to elements of ethnicity, race, and religion and between groups in this company. But age discrimination still exists in this company due to the ability of older female employees to adapt to technology.

Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment is a challenge in this company. More than half of the informants had experienced this before.

Work-Life Balance
Work-life Balance is another challenge that needs to be considered because it is one of the challenges most frequently mentioned by informants and difficult to achieve, especially informants who are married.

Discussion
Based on the interview, all informants answered has not experienced glass ceiling. There was not glass ceiling in the company due the position of leader is given to people who qualified to the job position. The result of discrimination are all informants has not experienced individual discrimination such as gender discrimination or discrimination that related to the elements of ethnicity, race, religion, between groups but there are 2 older female employees said they had experienced ages discrimination because of their ability to using technology, this is in line with Gregory's (2003) that older workers less able to adapt to new technology and less productive than younger workers.
Next indicator is Sexual Harassment, from 16 female informants, 11 had experienced sexual harassment. Based on the interview with 11 informants that had experienced sexual harassment, interviewer got information that there are 3 informants experienced verbal sexual harassment, 7 informants' experienced nonverbal sexual harassment and 1 informant experienced both. Employee motivation at work is influenced by psychological conditions felt by employees, including wages given, working conditions, organizational climate, and the sense of security felt by employees including a sense of security from sexual harassment. When sexual harassment occurs, emotional factors and misunderstandings, fears, and worries will definitely be felt by employees who are victims of sexual harassment. Similar to the effect of sexual harassment on work stress, when the psychological condition of employees is disturbed due to sexual harassment by their superiors, their enthusiasm for work will decrease.
The result of work-Life Balance from 16 informants, there are 10 informants admit that did not achieve work-life balance and 6 achieve work life balance. From 11 informants that admit did not achieve work-life balance during their career, there are 8 informants are married and 2 are single. From the interview, researcher found that more than half informants didn't achieve work-life balance during their career mostly informants who didn't achieve work-life balance are married so in other words they carry a dual role (as an employee in office and as a wife/mom in the house) this finding related to Abdurrahman's theory (2017) that said the high role conflict in female employees indicates that female employees have difficulty in aligning their roles in work and in the family.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION Conclusion
The conclusions of this research are: 1. Age's discrimination, work-life balance and sexual harassment are consider as challenges to female employees at PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong. Glass Ceiling is not consider as a challenge because the company only promotes employees who fulfill the qualification of the position without see their gender. 2. To overcome these challenges the female employees at PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Area Lahendong need to develop themselves to keep up with the times, especially in this digital era. In addition, it is important to managed time well between work and family so that it can be balanced.

Recommendation
Based on the overall findings of this research, the researcher proposes recommendations for women and the company: 1. For Female Employees: Female employees have to change their mindset. They need to empower themselves to have the ability and confidence to occupy leadership positions without having to wait for the position to be given to them. 2. For the company: Company should conduct a thorough investigation whenever there is a claim of discrimination or harassment, implement a zero-tolerance policy to prevent gender discrimination or sexual 427 Jurnal EMBA Vol. 10 No. 3 Juli 2022, Hal. 422 -427 harassment in the workplace and to help female, companies should offer flexible work arrangements such as introducing changes in working hours.