Flexibility continues to be one of the greatest challenges for workplaces and employees, and is consistently ranked in various workplace surveys as one of the top three concerns for leaders.
One of the keys to attracting and retaining women is supporting them through motherhood, allowing them the flexibility to work and raise children at the same time. Due to increasing levels of tertiary education amongst women, as well as globalisation and urbanisation in developing countries, women are having less children and having them later.
This movement to cities, and other countries, breaks down traditional models of extended families that in the past provided in-built childcare infrastructure, enabling women to work full-time.
Globally only 18% of businesses offer childcare support, only 16% offer financial incentives that would make child care more financially viable; and just 6% offer onsite childcare facilities. And those numbers have increased little in the last 20 years. In a global survey on women in senior management, 71% of companies in China do not offer flexible working conditions. In the same survey, in the USA where 72% of respondents said they offered flexible working options, only one third of their employees were women.
Clearly business could be doing more to support not just working mothers, but working parents. Most organisations have in place at a minimum, policies for working flexible hours, job sharing, and in some cases purchasing of extra holidays to cover school holidays; but how well does the rhetoric translate to reality, and does it become career limiting for women to access these flexible practices? In fact, is it equally career limiting for men to access flexibility?
Men are either cheered on as heroes for being involved in caring for their children—women get no such accolades—or they are scorned for being a soft touch, and they too, will be overlooked for new positions and promotions.
Then you have the newly appointed female CEO of Yahoo! Melissa Mayer who has rolled back the organisation’s work-from-home policy, informing employees through human resources that this option is no longer available and people will not be permitted to work remotely because ‘speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home’.
A perfect example yet again where a workplace of adults are being treated like children by senior management, sending the message that you cannot be trusted to work without supervision! The other message being that, ‘We don’t really care about how you manage your work and family responsibilities—it’s your problem not ours’. What a step backwards for a supposedly innovative organisation and industry!
If we truly want more flexibility in the workplace which is mutually beneficial for both employees and the organisation, I would strongly recommend that senior male leaders who hold the power to do almost anything in their organisations, actually ask women for assistance and their input in redesigning how we work. I have always found it highly amusing, and somewhat offensive at times, that men continue to make decisions on behalf of women without their input—a bit like the Davos forum in 2014 that looked at how to improve gender balance in the workplace, but only
14% of delegates were women, yet 85% of household purchases are made and determined by women. Ask women what we think—we’ll tell, if you would simply listen!
If the Chief of Army in Australia, leading a very male-dominated organisation, can listen to women in the organisation and seek advice from women outside like Elizabeth Broderick, Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, and myself, and make changes, then any male leader can if they choose to.
Lt. General Morrison’s message to all army personnel about the changes in culture and unacceptable behaviour, male and female, has been quite simple, ‘If this does not suit you, then get out’. It doesn’t get much clearer than that. The Army’s Gender Diversity Council, chaired by the Chief himself, has an equal split of male and female members. This is an example of leading through actions not just words. Women are willing to help the organisation succeed, knowing that it will lead to greater success for themselves too, they just need a voice and a place at the table.
As a leader are you listening, and have you made room at the mahogany table for women, or are they finding themselves banging their heads on the mahogany ceiling because they are not at the table—they are simply under the table trying to be heard?
The questions to ask as leaders are, ‘What will work for our employees who want to work flexibly?’ ‘What will work for the organisation?’ ‘What resources will we and our employees need to make this work?’ ‘Do managers need to know how to manage flexibility and those accessing it?’ The most important question though is, ‘What will it take for this to truly succeed and what do we need to change?’
It is critical to identify talented, high performing women and look for the best career paths which will accelerate the development of their skills and capability and to enable them to have the greatest impact. Part of the problem with traditional succession planning is that it creates lists of women who either work in the area being reviewed, or are already known to senior executives.
I would challenge organisations to look outside the box, in fact, consider creating new boxes! At Kelly Services in the USA, the CEO leads the talent development forum, and each executive is expected to identify unusual suspects for each role. The result has been finding surprising matches which have accelerated the individual’s development and has actually stimulated shifts in the company’s direction.
This is an extract from LEADERSHIP REVELATIONS III: HOW WE ACHIEVE THE GENDER TIPPING POINT BY AVRIL HENRY. Published by Avril Henry & Associates. Available at www.avrilhenry.com